8-4-2018 Take It Through The Week

8-4-2018 Take It Through The Week

Monday -Psalms 5:7 Time and time again the Word of God tells us, even commands us to worship the Lord. Regardless of whether it is by prayer or by praises, He is worthy of reverential awe. What a beautiful term. When the worship musicians begin, when the worship team leads the chorus, nothing else in the whole world should matter but our response to the abundance of Your faithful love. We were created specifically with the need to bow in His honor and nothing else will satisfy the deep spiritual need we have to reverence Him. Today, purpose in your heart to pause and think of His faithful love. Worship Him and give Him the glory due His name. If you do, then He promises not only to hear you, but also to do something more. Read 1 Peter 5:6. What does God say He will do for you?
 
Tuesday – Joshua 24:14–15 Therefore, fear the Lord and worship Him in sincerity and truth. Just as our scripture yesterday spoke of worshiping the Lord in reverential awe, today we are to fear and worship. The more we study the Word, the more we pray and grow as believers, the greater our God becomes in our hearts and minds. A God that could create both time and space, and then sovereignly keep it moving toward His eventual and inevitable conclusion, moves us to both fear and worship. Just as Joshua did, so we continue to do today. And did you notice that Joshua didn’t just fear and worship the Lord, he called the Israelites to do it in sincerity and truth. Read John 4:23-24. Just as Joshua called the Israelites to worship Him in sincerity and truth, more than 1000 years later the Messiah said that the Father wants us to worship Him, in Spirit and truth. Age after age, generation after generation, God will reward us with both His Presence and His Blessing if we purposefully make Him the object of our worship. He seeks and will reward those, who seek Him. Take a few moments in prayer and in your own words ask God to help you worship Him. Speak to Him and tell Him why you love Him
 
Wednesday – Psalms 29:2 Holiness is a term we don’t fully understand without some explanation. When we hear it, we immediately think of someone being, “holier than thou,” or a least thinking they are. We have all known a judgmental self-righteous person who thought themselves to be better than, or more than others. But learning about God’s holiness is a completely different concept. The Psalmist calls the Israelites to worship Yahweh in the splendor of His holiness. What is His holiness? He is set apart from all others, both angelic and human. He is Sovereignly exalted above all others, with no else able to duplicate His power and might. And yet, He allows us to call upon His Name and He says, He hears us. He says, He will listen to us. The same God the Psalmist acknowledged the glory due His Name, repeatedly encourages us to call to me… Read Jeremiah 29:12 He says, that when we call to Him, He will listen to us. Even from the throne room of Heaven, and the holy splendor of the company of the Saints and Angels who surround Him, He says when we call, He will hear us. Pray with me. Help me Father to understand more of who you are. Help me to give you glory in my every day. Help me to comprehend the splendor of Your holiness. You spoke the world into being, and You created me. You chose the time and place for me to be born, so that I would have the greatest chance of knowing you and following You. So help me to follow you. Help me to understand that you love me and are listening to me. Teach me to pray, Lord. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.
 
Thursday – Psalms 69:13 Have you ever asked someone for a favor? It means you are asking them to do something special, just for you. One of the reasons I love to worship the Lord, when no one else is looking and no one else knows, is because it is a lot like asking the God of the Universe for a favor. And the incredible thing is, that scripturally, I am not only given the right to do it, but encouraged to ask His favor. David asked, God …my prayer is for a time of favor… And David asked in full assurance, not because David deserved a time of favor, but because David knew He walked in God’s abundant, faithful love. David knew that God would answer me with Your sure salvation.Why is God’s salvation sure? Because God says it is. And He says it is sure, not just for David, but in the New Testament, for everyone who believes. Read Romans 1:16. What David knew, we can know. What David was sure of, we can be sure of. We have God’s Word on it.
 
Friday – Habakkuk 2:20 The scripture here is a prophetic scripture about a time that is yet to come. There will come a time when all activity, all traffic, all broadcasts, all soccer games, literally everything will stop… and everyone on earth will be silent in His presence. It would be a moment much like the scene from a movie where everyone pauses and is speechless as something cataclysmic happens. I know you’ve seen a movie where there is a scene like that. Everything stops as life on earth changes forever. It seems to be a theme in movies nowadays. But there will be a time when every motion will be stopped and every tongue will be silenced, as the Risen Lord Jesus Christ is recognized as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Holy City will descend, and the earth will be reformed into a brand new world. The Lord will sit in His holy temple and the judgment of all the lost will begin. And there will be no accusations, no defense, instead every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of the God, the Father. The silence will be broken by a forced acknowledgement of Jesus’ Lordship. Every atheistic writer of our time will be there from Christopher Hitchens to Stephen Hawking. Every heinous murderous dictator that has ever lived will be there. Every king and every illuminati who hated God and served only themselves in their earthly life will be silent until they kneel and confess that Jesus is Lord. And we the redeemed, will have begun our eternity in heaven, even as the haters of God will begin their eternity in hell. Take a moment and think about that coming silence. Who are you praying for? Who are you praying to come to Christ? Write down their names and pray for their salvation, before the great silence.
 
Saturday – Acts 9:31 The road to peace for the churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was paralleled by Saul’s journey on the road to Damascus. God brought peace to the churches by totally disrupting Saul’s life. If you read the beginning of Chapter 9 you see that Saul had been given full authority to persecute the followers of the Way. Take the time to read from the beginning of Chapter 9, and you will see the story of how Saul became Paul. And how God used Paul’s conversion to throw the Jewish persecution into chaos, even as the church had peace. How complete was Paul’s conversion? Read Philippians 1:21. Paul told the church at Phillippi For me, living is Christ, dying is gain. How completely can the Lord change someone? Paul’s original journey to Damascus to stamp out Christianity would later become three missionary journeys to start churches. He would write letter after letter encouraging them all in the faith, he had once tried to wipe out. Of course, that was before He met Jesus on the road to Damascus.