SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
3/29/2012 7:52:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Remembering
the works of the Lord.”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 66:1-7
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
begin to look at Psalm 66, the first thing will be to look at several
introductions.
“This joyful psalm begins with group
praise and then focuses on the individual worship. The psalmist rehearses some of the major
miracles in Israel’s history and testifies that God has always been faithful in
the midst of serious troubles.” (The
John MacArthur Study Bible)
“At
the close of the previous psalm, you hear nature praising the Lord, and the
psalm exhorts all mankind to join creation in celebrating God’s greatness. It appears that Israel had gone through
severe trials (vv. 8-12) and yet won a great victory with the Lord’s help. Some
students believe this event was the Lord’s miraculous defeat of Assyria (Isa.
36-37) and that the individual speaking in verses 13-20 was King Hezekiah,
whose prayer the Lord answered (37:14-20).
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).” (Warren Wiersbe)
A
Global Invitation: “All Nations, Praise
the Lord!”:
“1 For the choir director. A Song, A Psalm: Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; 2 Sing the
glory of His name; Make His praise glorious. 3 Say to God, "How awesome are Your works!
Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned
(man-made) obedience to You. 4 “All the earth will worship You, And will sing praises to You;
They will sing praises to Your name." Selah. 5 Come and see the works of
God, Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men. 6 He turned the sea
into dry land; They passed through the river on foot; There let us rejoice in
Him! 7 He rules by His
might forever; His
eyes keep watch on the nations; Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.”
It
was in the 63rd Psalm that David remembered what the Lord had done
for him in the “night watches,” and
remembering what the Lord has done in a person’s life is a wonderful way to
worship the Lord, although we must remember that the past can aid us in that
way, but we still have to move on in life each day. We see in this section that the psalmist is
remembering the exodus of Israel from Egypt as they crossed the sea on dry land
and then came into Canaan by crossing the dried up Jordan River that the Lord had
dried up so they could cross into Canaan.
This
psalm is also a missionary psalm and the psalmist wants the Gentile nations to
praise the Lord because of what God has done for Israel. This is not unusual for all believers praise
the Lord for what the Lord Jesus Christ did to bring about their
salvation. Jesus said to the woman at
the well that “Salvation is of the Jews”
and of course He was speaking of His death, burial and resurrection. The Church has much to praise the Lord about
for what has come from the nation of Israel and we would do good to thank the
Lord for the accomplishment that He has done through Israel. Satan hates Israel and has done much to try
and destroy her, but this will never happen, for that which is going to happen
to Israel is written in the pages of Scripture and will not be changed.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes the following describing what the Exodus and Passover mean to
the nation of Israel: “What the
resurrection of Jesus Christ is to believers today, the Exodus was to Israel
(Eph. 1:15-23). The Jews remember the
Exodus at Passover, and the church remembers the death and resurrection of
Christ at the Lord’s Supper.” Yes God
wants us to remember.
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: To remember what the Lord has done in my life
is a wonderful reason to worship the Lord.
A young Christian couple, who knew little about living the Christian
life, but had a desire to learn was given a small boy through birth who had a
difficult heart problem along with a number of other smaller problems that also
needed surgery to correct. I believe
that it was around May 7th or 8th of 1981 that we
entrusted our son to the Lord and the doctors who did very major surgery on our
son’s heart and heart valve. The surgery
was long and the results were mixed and may have to be repeated, but by the
grace of God and the prayers of the saints more surgery on his little heart was
not necessary and today that little son of ours has three children of his
own. Yes it is good to remember the
wonderful works of the Lord and praise and worship Him because of those
wonderful works.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Continue to trust the Lord for the healing of my mother who is quit ill
at this time. Continue to remember the
works of the Lord, especially the perfect salvation He has provided for
me. Continue to learn contentment in the
Lord as I go through life’s trials and troubles.
3/29/2012
8:40:08 AM
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