Repetitive Reminder

"O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever." Psalm 136:1-3

The Psalm is a call to all who love the Lord and know the truth, beauty and power of His mercy to present worship, praise and honour to God.

He provides unending benefits and His mercy is an everlasting flow toward us. In turn, we ought to find a constant stream of thanks issuing from our soul, heart, mind and lips!

Our praise and thanks unto the Lord is an apt and joyful spiritual sacrifice firstly for the fact of ‘What’ He is!

He is good! He is perfect in goodness even as he is just in severity. In the same way that God is love and doesn’t merely ‘have’ love, He is good in the ultimate and completely perfect sense of the word. All of His acts, motives and principles reflect this quality and attribute. We benefit from this good and merciful God in so many ways that it is impossible for us to name or count them all! We may experience some goodness as we relate to each other in this human world and at times are surprised to find someone who shows us kindness or goodness,  expecting most of the time quite the opposite. This is not so with the Lord whose goodness is not merely a part or portion of His character, but who is actual goodness and love itself in all His dealings with us. From Him, if we come in humility, we can be sure to find goodness and this should bring out the most heartfelt gratitude and praise from our souls.

Secondly for the fact of ‘Who’ He is!

He is the God of gods and the Lord of lords! Idols and man-made gods are mere figments and fantasies, but if there could exist any creature or power worthy to be deemed a ‘god’, then Jesus would be the GOD of them! He is the supreme power there is no-one higher and no-one beside Him or equal to Him! As the ultimate and superlative Deity, He cannot be mistaken, misplaced or displaced. He doesn’t have to vie for position or prove His worth, for when all that exalts itself has come and gone He will remain and continue eternally! He is what the sun is to a candle, the ocean to a raindrop, the universe to a star!

Humanity has known many lords, kings and sovereigns of all kinds, reputations and influence, but of the best among them, none can even begin to compare to the One true and ultimate LORD! He is the potentate above all and when the lights go out on the last human ruler and the door closes on the last realm, this King of kings and Lord of lords will continue eternally in the reign which He has established and has existed forever.  

Thirdly for the fact of 'what' He does!

It is with these thoughts in mind that the Psalmist repeatedly encourages us to note and remember His mercy which endureth forever. Our great God 'does' great mercy toward us! Mercy is the motive and manner of His giving to us His creation. 

Everlasting mercy can only come from an everlasting God and such ever-present, enduring, persisting and sturdy mercy, merits our highest praise and thanks! This One who is Judge overall and will endure eternally is not limited in mercy as we are. He doesn’t run out or short, He determines the extent of His longsuffering love and does not measure as we mortals do. 

The evidence of His dealings with man over the past millennia shows a mercy, which in human terms really is not only ‘unending’, but also unparalleled, unsurpassed, unexcelled, unmatched and unequalled! We owe Him gratitude, honour and praise with every breath we take. Amen.



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

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