SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 3/30/2012 9:22:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Praising the Lord”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference:
Psalm
66:8-20
Message
of the verses: Dr. Warren Wiersbe
writes this at the end of his introduction on Psalm 66: “The exhortation to praise the Lord begins
with the Gentile nations (vv. 1-7), moves to Israel (vv. 8-12), and concludes
with the individual believers (vv. 13-20).”
A National Proclamation: “Israel, Praise the Lord!” (vv. 8-12): “8 Bless our God, O peoples, And sound His
praise abroad, 9 Who keeps us in life And does not allow our
feet to slip. 10 For You have tried us, O God; You have refined us as silver is
refined. 11 You brought us into the net; You laid an oppressive burden upon our
loins. 12 You made men ride over our heads; We went through fire and through
water, Yet You brought us out into a place of abundance.” “8 Let the whole world bless our God and
loudly sing his praises. 9 Our lives are in his hands, and He keeps our feet
from stumbling. 10 You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver.
11 You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs. 12
Then you put a leader over us. We went
through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance.” (NLT)
The
psalmist wants all Israel to praise the name of the Lord, and if there is any
nation that should praise the Lord it is Israel. All one has to do is look back into history
to see how the Lord brought about the nation of Israel, as it began with a 100
year old man and his 90 year old wife who gives birth to a promised child and
from there we see this family expand into a nation as when God sent them into
Egypt there were 70 in this miracle family and 400 years later there were more
than a million people in this family when God brought them out of their slavery
and eventually into the Promised Land.
God gave them His law, His sanctuary, and His priests and prophets, and
would bless them with all they needed.
God had to discipline them many times for their unfaithfulness, but this
was done out of love for them as He moved them to the point where eventually
the Messiah would be born to one of them, the Messiah who would pay for the
sins of the world. The apostle Paul
writes that Israel has been set aside at this point, but one day God will again
be dealing with Israel bringing His Kingdom to earth headed up by Jesus Christ
who will set on David’s throne in Jerusalem and rule the world from there for
1000 years. Yes Israel has much to praise
the Lord for, but so does His Church.
A Personal Affirmation “Praise God with Me!”
(vv. 13-20): “13 I shall come into Your house with burnt
offerings; I shall pay You my vows, 14 Which my lips uttered And my mouth spoke
when I was in distress. 15 I shall offer to You burnt offerings of fat beasts,
With the smoke of rams; I shall make an offering of bulls with male goats.
Selah. 16 Come and hear, all who fear God, And I will tell of what He has done
for my soul. 17 I cried to Him with my mouth, And He was extolled with my
tongue. 18 If I regard
wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear; 19 But certainly God has
heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Who has
not turned away my prayer Nor His lovingkindness from me.“13 Now I come to your
Temple with burnt offerings to fulfill
the vows I made to you- 14 yes, the sacred vows that I made when I was in deep trouble. 15 That is why I
am sacrificing burnt offerings to you- the best of my rams as a pleasing aroma,
and a sacrifice of bulls and male goats.
Interlude 16 Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you
what he did for me. 17 For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke.
18 If I had not confessed
the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. 19 But God did
listen! He paid attention to my prayer. 20
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from
me.” (NLT)
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The change from
‘we/our’ to ‘I/my’ is significant, for corporate worship is the ministry of
many individuals, and God sees each heart.
During his times of trial, the psalmist had made vows to God, and now he
hastened to fulfill them. He brought
many burnt offerings to the altar, the very best he had, and they symbolized
his total dedication to the Lord. We
today obey as Romans 12:1-2 says as we present ourselves as living sacrifices.” “1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the
mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
AKJV (Romans 12:1-2) These are two of my favorite verses in all of
the Word of God and all believers are to come to the point in their lives, like
the psalmist of Psalm 66, to present themselves to the Lord because of all that
He has done for them. The first eleven
chapters of the book of Romans talks about all that the Lord has done for His
own, and now it is time for them to lay themselves on the altar as a living
sacrifice to accomplish what it is that the Lord wants them to accomplish for
the cause of Christ. I believe that
according to Ephesians 2:10 that these things were chosen by God for each believer
to accomplish while they are alive on planet earth. The psalmist speaks in this section about
having a clean heart or God will not hear him and Psalm 139:23-24 instructs us
to ask the Holy Spirit of God to search our hearts for unconfessed sin so that
we can confess that sin to the Lord so that He will hear us.
The psalmist had something wonderful happen to
him and now he is sharing it with all we as believers in Jesus Christ are to
share the wonderful thing that God has done for us and the first thing on that
list ought to be how He saved us. Peter
writes “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone
who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with
gentleness and reverence.”
Warren Wiersbe writes more about verse
18: “The verb ‘regard’ (v. 18) means ‘to
recognize and to cherish, to be unwilling to confess and forsake know
sins.’ It means approving that which God
condemns. When we recognize sin in our
hearts, we must immediately judge it, confess it, and forsake it (1John
1:5-10); otherwise, the Lord can’t work on our behalf (Isa. 59:1-2). To cover sin is to invite trouble and
discipline (Proverbs 28:13; Josh 7).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: An old Scottish Preacher said “The Christian
life is a series of new beginnings.” I
agree with that for even though I have been born from above into the family of
God and received a new nature that always wants to obey the Lord in everything
there are also three enemies that I face each day, the world, the flesh, and
the devil. Thus at times I fail the Lord
and am in need of 1John 1:9. I am also
in need of Psalm 139:23-24. There came a
time in my early walk with the Lord that I offered myself as a living sacrifice
to the Lord, to live for the Lord and He has not failed me, nor will He. The issue is that I fail Him from time to
time and I need to confess my sin in order to be able to have sweet fellowship
with the God who save me.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: Romans 12:1-2; Psalm 139:23-24; Proverbs
3:5-6; Phil. 4:11b & Psalm 66:18.
3/30/2012
10:13:49 AM
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