SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 12/16/2012 8:08:28 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 149-PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 149:3-5
Message of
the verses: We will look at more of Psalm 149 in today’s
Spiritual Diary, but first I want to quote what Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the end of
his introductory commentary, “This psalm is a primer on worship and gives us
the basic instructions we need.”
Worship
The Lord Fervently (vv. 3-4): “3 Let them praise His name with dancing; Let
them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. 4 For the LORD takes pleasure
in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.”
I think it was back in the late 1990’s that I first
listened to a CD that was made in Jerusalem by Paul Wilbur who is a Pastor from
Chicago. The CD is entitled “Shalom
Jerusalem,” and sometime after I listened to the CD we were able to by a video
tape of it. There was Jewish dancing
that was seen while the music was playing, and I would suppose that this
dancing was the type that is mentioned in verse three, for Jewish dancing is
interpretive dances that point to the Lord and not some person’s talent. There are examples of dancing spoken of in
the Scriptures, Exodus 15:20; Judges 11:34; 1Samuel 18:6; and Jeremiah 31:4).
Now as we move into the Church age
we find that the Church patterned itself after the type of worship that was
found in the Jewish Synagogues where we find the reading of the Scriptures
along with expounding on them and also prayer.
At this point I want to quote some
writings from Dr. Wiersbe on this section because of the importance of the
topic of worship. “Spiritual fervency
must not be confused with fleshly enthusiasm.
There are false worshiper as well as true worshipers (John 4:22-24; Col.
2:16-23), and some people who think they are filled with the Spirit are really
being fooled by the spirits. Bringing
false fire into the sanctuary can lead to death (Lev. 10:1-11). Our purpose is not to please ourselves or to
demonstrate how ‘spiritual’ we are. Our
purpose is to delight in the Lord (147:11), and humility is one virture that
brings Him great joy (Isa. 66:1-2). ‘1 Thus says the LORD, "Heaven is My
throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for
Me? And where is a place that I may rest? 2 “For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But to
this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who
trembles at My word.’ The Lord gives
spiritual beauty to those whose worship brings Him delight. Worship ought to be beautiful, for we are
beholding the beauty of the Lord (27:4; 29:2; 90:17; 96:9) and becoming more
like the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18). Worship
must focus on God, not on us, and it must be enrichment, not
entertainment. The experience of true
worship can help us experience deliverance from the bondage of sin and the
world.” 2 Cor. 3:18 says, “But we all,
with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Romans 8:29 says “For those whom He foreknew,
He also predestined to
become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the
firstborn among many brethren.”
Worship the Lord Gratefully (v.5): “5 Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let
them sing for joy on their beds.” “5 Let
the saints rejoice in this honour and sing for joy on their beds.” (NIV)
The Hebrew word that is translated
“glory” in the NASB is translated “honor” in both the NIV and the NLT. When looking it up I found that this Hebrew
word is translated 32 times in the KJV in different parts of the OT. Dr. Wiersbe states that “honor” is the
privilege of worshiping the true and living God. We as believers have this wonderful privilege
and honor of worshiping the Lord of Glory.
The Word of God came first to the nation of Israel and now it is passed
onto the Church as we not only have the Old Testament, but now we also have the
New Testament.
I am in the process, the early
process of trying to wade my way through a book that is written by A. W. Tozer
entitled “The Knowledge of the Holy,” and at this point, because it goes along
with the worship of the Church, I would like to take some quotes from it. Before I do this I want to kind of set the
stage: The book is about knowing God,
which is the title of a book by J. I. Packer, and talks about the same thing,
that is how we can know God. It speaks
of the attributes of God and both “Knowing God,” and also “The Knowledge of the
Holy were written in the mid 20th century. Tozer says that the most important question a
person can ask is “What comes into our minds when we think about God.” How are we to learn to worship our God in the
way that He desires for us to worship Him if we do not know Him? Tozer states that in the mid 20th
century the Church was moving away from knowing God in the way that we should
know Him, and this great problem has not gotten any better as we entered into
the first and second decade of the 21st century. Tozer writes in his Preface to “The Knowledge
of the Holy” these words “I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from
the popular religious mind. The Church
has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so
low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has done not deliberately, but
little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes
her situation all the more tragic.” He
goes on to state “Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of
Christian who can
appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit.” This statement makes me think of a similar
statement that Dr. Wiersbe wrote in his “Be” book that he wrote on Ruth and
Ester, where a question was asked “How much difference would it make in the
life of the Church today if the Holy Spirit was not present in the
believers?” His answer was very little. I know that this is not true in all local
churches and for all believers, but if one looks honestly at the dominant type
of church in the world today it would be like what Christ spoke of the church
at Laodicea in the third chapter of Revelations. Many scholars have stated that the order of
the churches found in the second and third chapters of Revelations is prophetic
in the way the churches were throughout the history of the Church, so if we are
in the time period of the Laodicean Church then we are near the end of the
Church.
I am sorry to get a bit off of the
subject, but I think it was necessary and does fit into worship.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It is my
desire to continue to know my God more and more and better and better so that
my worship of Him will be pleasing to Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
learn contentment, continue to be transformed by the renewing of my mind
through the Word of God, and to know God better and better
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 121:1
1 I will lift up my eyes to the
mountains; From where shall my help come?
12/16/2012 9:36:49 AM
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