SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 11/6/2012 9:25:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 God
Never Sleeps and More
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 134:1-3
Message of
the verses: We will begin today’s SD by looking at
several introductions to Psalm 134 by different Bible Commentators.
“An exhortation to bless the Lord: We must stir up ourselves to give glory to
God, and encourage ourselves to hope for mercy and grace from him. It is an
excellent plan to fill up all our spare minutes with pious meditations, and
prayers and praises. No time would then be a burden, nor should we murder our
hours by trifling conversation and vain amusements, or by carnal indulgences.
We need desire no more to make us happy, than to be blessed of the Lord. We
ought to beg spiritual blessings, not only for ourselves, but for others; not
only, The Lord bless me, but, The Lord bless thee; thus testifying our belief
that there is enough for others as well as for us, and showing our good will to
others.” (Matthew Henry’s Concise
Commentary)
“We have now reached the last of the
Gradual Psalms. The Pilgrims are going home, and are singing the last song in
their Psalter. They leave early in the morning, before the day has fully
commenced, for the journey is long for many of them. While yet the night lingers they are on the
move. As soon as they are outside the gates they see the guards upon the temple
wall, and the lamps shining from the windows of the chambers which surround the
sanctuary; therefore, moved by the sight, they chant a farewell to the
perpetual attendants upon the holy shrine. Their parting exhortation arouses
the priests to pronounce upon them a blessing out of the holy place: this benediction
is contained in the third verse. The priests as good as say, ‘You have desired
us to bless the Lord, and now we pray the Lord to bless you.’”
“The
Psalm teaches us to pray for those who are continually ministering before the
Lord, and it invites all ministers to pronounce benedictions upon their loving
and prayerful people.”
“The
last of the ‘Songs of Ascents’ series is quite brief, but it deals with a vast
subject: worshiping the Lord and sharing
His blessings with others. It is a short
psalm –-117 is the shortest—but it deals with a subject that could fill
volumes. The psalm closes the collection
with a benediction and leads into a series of psalm that emphasize praising the
Lord. The inferences we draw from this
psalm ought to encourage us in our own pilgrim journey and make us a blessing
to others.” (Dr. Warren Wiersbe).
A God Who Never Sleeps (v.1): “1 A Song of
Ascents: Behold, bless the LORD, all
servants of the LORD, Who serve by night in the house of the LORD!”
This is the last of the “Ascent
Psalms,” and it could be seen as the weary travelers are finally entering the
city of Jerusalem from their long journey or it could be seen as they are about
to leave and return to their homes and have a desire to look around the city
one last time, and as they do they see that there are even choirs singing in
the night at the temple, and that the watchman are guarding the gates of the
city. The story of Elijah gives us some
insight into the fact that our Lord never sleeps or rests, for while Elijah was
confronting the prophets of Baal he teases them by stating that perhaps Baal
was tired and needed a nap. Psalm
121:3-4 states, “3 He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will
not slumber. 4 Behold, He who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor
sleep.” This is so good to know for
there are times when we awake in the middle of the night and then have trouble
going back to sleep and it is during this time that we can talk to our Lord. It seems that in my life I have had the best conversations
with the Lord in the wee hours of the morning.
I have gotten to the point to where if I awake and cannot go back to
sleep that I will ask the Lord what it is that He wants me to hear from Him,
and take the time to listen to that still small voice.
A Worship That Never Ends (v.2): “2 Lift up
your hands to the sanctuary And bless the LORD.”
When we look back at the life of
David we see that he had set up choirs in the temple to continually worship the
Lord. “Now these are the singers, heads of fathers’ households of the Levites,
who lived in the chambers of the temple free from other service; for they were
engaged in their work day and night.” (1Chron. 9:33) “They are to stand every morning to thank and
to praise the LORD, and likewise at evening.”
(1Chron.23:30) “It is good to
give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; 2 To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning
And Your faithfulness by night.” (Psalm
92:1-2) Some examples of this happening
to people can be seen in the Scriptures.
“But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of
praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” (Acts 16:25)
This verse speaks of true worship in my way of describing it. Let me try to explain. Worship is 24/7/365 and not just when we are
doing devotions or attending a Bible Study, or attending a church or Sunday
school service. We are worshiping the
Lord in everything we do so we must remember to be doing things that please the
Lord all of the time, even when we are asleep.
There are times when we are asleep that we have bad dreams, and when
this happens we are to remember before we go to bed to ask the Lord to even be
with us when we dream so it will glorify the Lord. Paul and Silas we able to sing songs in
worship to the Lord even after being beaten and put into a jail because of how
they had continually been worshiping the Lord, for what was in them was coming
out of them in this difficult time.
Dr. Wiersbe has written a book
entitled “Real Worship,” a book that is a great read to help us understand more
about worship. He writes the following
from his section here by stating, “The greatest responsibility and highest privilege
of individual believers and of churches is to worship God, for everything we
are and do flows out of worship. Yet
today, worship is often trivialized into cheap, clever entertainment, and the
sanctuary has become a theater… True worshipers lift ‘clean hands and a pure
heart’ to the Lord (24:4; James 4:8), for the Lord looks on the heart. We will worship God for all eternity (Rev.
4-5), so we had better start learning now.”
A Blessing That Never Stops (V.3): May the LORD
bless you from Zion, He who made heaven and earth.
Let’s begin this section by looking
at Numbers 6:22-27, “22 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23 "Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying,
’Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: 24 The LORD bless you, and keep you; 25
The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; 26 The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And
give you peace.’ 27 “So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel,
and I then will bless them.’” It is
important to know that the pronoun “you” is singular. Dr. Wiersbe writes, “For blessings of God is
for each of us personally.” It is
singular in this passage in Numbers and also in verse three of Psalm 134. I think that this is a very important point
to remember for in it we see that God desires to bless each of us individually,
think about the God who created all things that have been created, who desires
to bless us, each of us.
When we realize that God desires to
bless us we have the responsibility to bless others, to pass the blessings on
to others. God told Abraham that in him
all the world would be blessed, and it truly has been when we look at the
nation of Israel, for that is where the Word of God came through, and also
where the Lord Jesus Christ was born into and through Him all the world has
been blessed. It all started with a 100
year old man and his 90 year old wife.
Dr. Wiersbe concludes his commentary
from this psalm: “If God never sleeps
and our worship never ends, then the blessing will not stop. Like the precious gift that Mary of Bethany
gave to Jesus, the fragrance of the blessing will reach around the world (Mark.
14:1-9).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: There is
a hymn that goes like this that goes along with this SD.
Make Me a Blessing
(1) Out in the
high-ways and by-ways of life,
Many are weary and
sad;
Carry the
sunshine where darkness is rife,
Making the
sorrowing glad.
CHORUS:
Make me a blessing, Make me a blessing --
Out of my life May Jesus shine;
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray,
Make me a blessing to someone today.
(2) Tell the
sweet story of Christ and His love,
Tell of His power
to forgive;
Others will trust
Him if only you prove
True, every
moment you live.
(3) Give as 'twas
given to you in your need,
Love as the
Master loved you;
Be to the
helpless a helper indeed,
Unto your mission
be true.”
The
story behind this song is as follows: “Make Me A
Blessing
George Shuler and Ira Wilson were roommates at Moody Bible Institute in 1924.
At the Institute, they combined their talents and gave the world a
beautiful song of consecration, “Make Me A Blessing.” Wilson wrote the lyrics
and Shuler the music.
At first the song was rejected by music publishers, so Shuler had one
thousand copies printed to distribute on his own.
One fell into the hands of George Dibble, an outstanding singer who was
at that time music director for the International Sunday School Convention in
Cleveland, Ohio. Dibble asked for permission to use the song and it was granted.
Soon people everywhere were singing the song, and publishers wanted to
distribute copies.
Between the time Ira Wilson wrote the lyrics and the time the song
began to be so well known, Wilson apparently forgot that he was the author!
Until he died, he never remembered that he had written these famous
words.
—Adapted from Lindsay Terry
My Steps of Faith for Today: Being a
blessing to others is my step of faith for today.
Memory verses for
the week: Psalm 130:1-3
1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O
LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice! Let you ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications. 3 If You, LORD, should
mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
11/6/2012
10:48:01 AM
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