Proclaim Him Worthy! (part 2)

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1Ti 1:17  

Our Lord and God is the perfect opposite of all else and others who may present themselves as worthy of adulation and admiration. They have to be constantly ‘visible’ to us and appeal to our natural senses for us to notice them. To make them visible, their talents or products and reputation must be constantly marketed and must compete for the consumer attention, and money. Idols are man-made gods, and are of necessity visible, physical icons, statues, people or things which must be ‘seen’ by our physical eyes to hold any sway. 

In direct opposition to man’s notions of deity, the true God and King of Kings is invisible to the natural mortal eye, He is not obvious to those who cannot look with the spiritual eyes of faith. Yet for all that He does not rely on having to be personally ‘seen’, His presence is everywhere, His creation surrounds us and the evidences of His power and person are written in every molecule and atom of space and matter so that we cannot escape His presence or influence. What an amazing miracle that the signature of this invisible Almighty Sovereign is everywhere around and in us! Like the wind He is unseen but works of His hand and the effects of His Spirit, leave no doubt that He is there!

He is the Only God and the originator of all wisdom, knowledge and information. We have all been enriched by His inimitable wisdom and power. What we ‘discover’ as human beings, are but gems from His inexhaustible treasury, which He in His time and wisdom allows us to find, and what we ‘invent’ are but imitations of the patterns of the creation He made to begin with. We utilize what He has already made and created and made available to us. Like children in a sandpit we make the sand castles of the things that fill and surround our lives, but the sand and implements we use, along with the energy, ability, creativity and a myriad of other processes, have all been given to us, by the ever loving, eternal and only wise God.

What a mighty God we serve! Worthy of all praise, honour, thanks and glory! He it is who must be worshipped and freely, passionately, lovingly appreciated and proclaimed. Jesus and only He is worthy of our acclaim and wholehearted love and affection. Oh that we would like the woman with the alabaster box of ointment, pour upon this ONE, the kind of attention that belongs to Him and is rightly His. Let’s never fall short by being miserly in our worship towards the King and Lord who has lavished all goodness and blessing upon us; or  by surrendering our love and worship to anyone or anything else! 

See also: 

http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Proclaim Him Worthy! (part 1)

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1Ti 1:17 

As humans we often make great proclamations and give praise and acclaim to all sorts of persons. From the appropriate applause given in the media to the praise worthy rescue officer for self-sacrificial efforts made in times of crisis, to the frequently misplaced and even excessive adulation lavished freely by many on some contemporary band, actor or performer, we clearly demonstrate that we are capable of praise and yes worship!

Sadly far too few in this world demonstrate any such passion for the One who is truly worthy of all admiration, praise, worship and acclamation. In fact in the noise of all things human that surround us day to day, entire lifetimes are spent and gone without a single solitary thought of praise, or a word of thanks to the Eternal God who made us all.

In stark contrast to this general spiritual numbness of most of humanity, the gratitude, exaltation and honour expressed by the Apostle toward God, rings a loud and reverberating reminder to all of us of how we ought to view the Lord and what we ought to express to Him.

Like a well primed pump, a ready, unrestrained praise and genuine heart-full worship should burst out from our souls as we consider this ‘blessed and only Potentate’, who is not merely a king but the KING of Kings; not just a nobleman or VIP, but the LORD of Lords; not merely a performer limited to one art or another, but the Creator of all, the author and finisher of our faith, the beginning and the ending of all things, the repository of all knowledge and wisdom -  the Almighty! He is Someone to get excited about!

Kings, sovereigns and leaders come and go leaving a distant or unfamiliar memory, or at most an historical trace in some dusty book on a library shelf, but not this King of Ages! He is ever present and endures forever. He is eternal, having been there before all others and continuing when all others will long have passed away. Everything we know, see and have around us proceeded from Him and will be outlived by Him. God is permanent in the true sense of the word! He doesn’t wear away, rust, weaken or become out-dated!

Looking in the mirror as we age, we can all see the signs and sense the effects which time has on us. We feel the deterioration in our bodies and can admit freely that ‘we ain’t quite what we used to be’! But it isn’t so with this Almighty King! He is immortal and totally incorruptible, not given to any of the decay and weakening and corrosion we are accustomed to. He is now what He has always been and will always remain the same perfect, complete, self-existing and sufficient One. When we have King Jesus in our lives we have a constant and consistent Friend who never changes, leaves or dies! Our eternal Monarch has no successors and will ever rule and reign supreme! (Continued in part 2)

See also: 

http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Staying True

"Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life." 1 John 2:24-25

 The teaching, light and revelation God gave us by His Word when we first came to know Him, showing us His love, truth and holiness, is still the message and information which keeps us and saves us today. The same practices of prayer, study and obedience to His Word and sharing the good news of salvation with others are as important and essential today as when we first were shown them. 

We may think that modernizing, up-sizing, 'programmizing', organizing and socializing are the all-essential elements to Christian life and growth, but God is ultimately looking for enduring faithfulness to what He showed us in the beginning and the persistence of the 'first love' and passion with which we embraced those principles when we were first exposed to them. Staying with those basic principles and letting them remain is us, helps us keep our eyes on Jesus - the Author and Finisher of our faith - and is therefore the true goal of Christian living.

Holding those things as precious, and keeping them present and alive in our day to day living, abiding in our hearts and minds, means we safeguard our relationship with Jesus and ensure our eternal future in heaven. It is in this constancy and continuance, that the greatest power of Christian living is displayed. 

The spiritual message and input God supplied at the beginning was perfect and complete to start with and requires no adjustment, modernization or compromise, but only that we grow deeper in the understanding of it and more appreciative of the preciousness of it. 

How many have started out ‘in love with Jesus’ only to end up ‘in love with the world and the things of it'! This loss is tragic for it has eternal consequences.

This then, is the true expression of our faithfulness to God, that we never deviate from what He imparted to us at the beginning, and that we always maintain our fervent 'first love' toward Him and His Word! 

There is a reward promised by the Lord, to those who faithfully adhere to and do not turn or compromise from the principles and faith they first received – that promise is eternal life!


See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion