"The Lord Is With Us ... "

The Lord is with us - even when we're going through hard times!
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Job 33:19-34:20

Things are going well. We say, 'Thank You, God.' We rejoice in the Lord. We give praise to His Name. Everything seems to be going so well - but we need to take care! In the good times, our praise and thanksgiving can go stale. We take God's blessing for granted. Our rejoicing in the Lord becomes a superficial thing. Things start going badly. We blame God. We say, 'Where are You, Lord? What are You going to do about this?' What we must remember is this: The Lord is with us - even when we're going through hard times. He hasn't stopped loving us. He hasn't gone away and left us. He is there beside us, every step of the way. He wants to bring us closer to Himself, to give us this powerful testimony: 'He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light' (33:28-30).

Sweet Incense

and Jesus said 'My House Shall Be Called A House Of Prayer".

May your home be filled with prayer...

As We Work For God, Let Us Never Forget To Thank Him And Praise Him.

1 Chronicles 22:2-23:32
We need visionaries. We need managers. We need workers. David was a visionary. He had the original idea of building the Temple. Solomon was a manager. Under his leadership, the vision became a reality. David was important - but he was only involved in the ‘preparation’ for the building of the Temple (22:5). Solomon was important - ‘He shall build a House for My Name’(22:9-10) - but he couldn’t do everything. The people were important. They were the workers. Without the workers, the work remains undone. Each of us must play our part. We must ‘do the work for the service of the House of the Lord’(23:24). In this work, there is something we must never forget - ‘thanking and praising the Lord’(23:30). David, Solomon, the people - they were all important. More important is the Lord. We need Him.

Praise God For What He Has Done In The Past. Pray For More Of His Blessing In The Future.

1 Chronicles 10:1-11:19
Saul’s life can be summed up in one word - ‘unfaithfulness’: ‘he was unfaithful to the Lord’. This is a warning: Don`t become like Saul who ‘did not keep the command of the Lord... and did not seek guidance from the Lord’(10:13-14). David was quite different from Saul. He became king ‘according to the Word of the Lord’. He grew in strength because ‘the Lord of hosts was with him’(11:3,9). David was helped greatly by his ‘mighty men, who gave him strong support in his kingdom, together with all Israel’(11:10). These things were ‘written for our instruction’ (Romans 15:4). Praise God for what He has done in the past - ‘Blessed be the Lord for ever!’(Psalm 89:52). Pray for more of His blessing in the future - ‘O that some one would give me to drink from the well of Bethlehem’(11:17; Revelation 22:17; John 7:37-39).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

God ‘Blesses’ Us Through ‘His Word.’ He ‘Blesses’ Us In ‘The Spirit.’

Psalm 147:1-20
‘The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the exiles of Israel. he heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds’(2-3). This is much more than the building of the city of Jerusalem with bricks and mortar. This is God building up His people in their ‘most holy faith’(Jude 20). This is God blessing His people as they gather together to worship Him. In Christ, we are ‘being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit’(Ephesians 2:22). The Lord draws us to Himself. He brings us into fellowship with His people. He calls us to worship Him: ‘Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving’. He ‘blesses’ us through ‘His Word’. He ‘blesses’ us in ‘the Spirit’: ‘He sends His Word... and the waters flow’(7,12-13,18; John 7:37-39).

Psalms 148:1-150:6
‘Praise the Lord’. Psalms 146 and 147 began and ended with these words. Now, we find the same beginning and ending in each of these three Psalms - ‘Praise the Lord’. Our personal song of praise to God - ‘Praise be to the Lord my Rock... I will sing a new song to You, O God... I will exalt You, my God the King; I will praise Your Name for ever and ever; Every day I will praise You... My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord... I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live’(144:1,9; 145:1-2,21; 146:2) - is just a small part of something so much richer and fuller - ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’(150:6). May these great Psalms of praise inspire us to praise the Lord more truly and more fully.
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

The God Whom We Worship Is So Much Greater Than The Worship We Bring To Him.

Psalm 145:1-21
‘Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. His greatness is beyond understanding’. Let us worship our great God: ‘I will exalt You, my God the King. I will praise Your Name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise You and extol Your Name for ever and ever’(1-3). The God whom we worship is so much greater than the worship we bring to Him. Our worship is to be a ‘joyful celebration’. We celebrate His great love: ‘The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love’. We rejoice in His great faithfulness: ‘The Lord is faithful to all His promises’. Here on earth, we have only begun to worship our great God. Our worship will continue in His ‘everlasting Kingdom’. There, we will ‘praise His Name for ever and ever’(7-8, 13,21).

Psalm 146:1-10
‘I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live’(2). Praising the Lord our God: This is a lifelong commitment. We cannot maintain this lifelong commitment in our own strength. We need the Lord’s help. We must never forget this: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain’(127:1). We are not expected to maintain this lifelong commitment in our own strength. We have the Lord’s help. We must always remember this: ‘Our help is in the Name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth’(124:8). ‘Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, the Lord who remains faithful for ever’(5-6).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

We Have Been Redeemed. Let's Give Thanks To The Lord.

Psalm 74:1-23
We have been ‘redeemed’. God has brought ‘salvation’ to us (2,12). We rejoice in the Old Testament story of salvation: ‘the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt’(Deuteronomy 7:8). Through Christ, we rejoice with a much greater joy: “In Him we have redemption through His blood’. This is ‘the Gospel of our salvation’. It is ‘good news of a great joy’. Through faith in Christ, we ‘rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy’. Through faith in Christ, we look forward to ‘a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time... the salvation of our souls’(Ephesians 1:7,13; Luke 2:10; 1 Peter 1:5,8-9). ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God’(Revelation 19:1).

Psalms 75:1-76:12
‘We give thanks to You, O God... I will rejoice for ever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob... Make your vows to the Lord your God, and perform them...’(75:1,9; 76:11). True rejoicing in the Lord is more than singing praises to Him. We are to live what we sing. ‘Fill Thou our life, O Lord our God, in every part with praise’. ‘Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee’. These are not words to be forgotten as soon as we leave the place of worship. ‘We ask... for a life made up of praise in every part’. ‘Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee’(Church Hymnary, 457, 462). Such words are not only for singing. They are for living. We must not only sing them. We must live them. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’(Philippians 4:13).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com