Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [34] Cosmic Praise!

Zwingli (again)

Last year my wife and I visited Zurich, not so much to see the birth place of Ulrich Zwingli, the great Swiss reformer, but to visit the place where a parallel reformation was taking place - "Anabaptism."

This label was given to them by their enemies who said that they were getting baptized "ana" again -  as an adult, whereas they had, said their enemies, already been baptised - as a baby.

Of course the Anabaptists just saw themselves as regular New Testament Christians who were following the command of Christ to believe and be baptised - in that order. (They did not regard their first "baptism," which they had not agreed to or consented to, as a baptism at all.)

We went to Zurich to follow the Anabaptist's story. Bright witnesses such as Felix Manz and Conrad Grebels, forgotten now, but pioneering believers who wanted to go right back to the New Testament.

But in Zurich you can't avoid the shadow of the good reformer, Zwingli, or his towering statue.

Let's briefly return to what has been called Zwingli's "death hymn" (a morbid title; it should really be called his Restoration Hymn), which he wrote during and after he contracted the plague.

Folks wrote long hymns those days; here is the point at which Zwingli's Restoration hymn turns from near-death gloom to daytime praise and worship:

My God! My Lord!
Healed by the hand.
Upon the earth
Once more I stand.

Let sin no more
Rule over me;
My mouth shall sing
Alone to thee.

Though now delayed,
My hour will come.
Involved, perchance.
In deeper gloom.

But, let it come;
With joy I’ll rise,
And bear my yoke
Straight to the skies.

On the one hand Zwingli is a realist - he knows his last day will come - but on the other hand he wants to live a godly life "let sin no more rule over me" and a worshipping life "my mouth shall sing alone to Thee" in the present.

And by God's grace Zwingli did both.

Cosmic Worship

The last four verses of Psalm 103 lift our souls in cosmic worship!

The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
²¹ Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.
²² Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

We have already noticed one purpose of verse 19 - to remind the reader focussing on personal worship not to become self-absorbed and forget God's larger world (verse 6 does much the same, we observed).

Today we see another reason for verse 19. As David ends his personal soul-worship psalm, his horizon widens out to the whole universe and he urges the cosmos to join him in praise. In verse 19 David reminds us that God has established his throne over all, which means God rules over absolutely everything, both seen and unseen. 

Do you believe that, reader? God rules over everything.

With New Covenant eyes, we know that on this now-established throne sits King Jesus, who after ascending into heaven was installed at the right hand of the Father, to rule over the universe for the good of the Church.  

Since Jesus is the Universe's Cosmic King, it is only right that his subjects bow at his loving feet. 

David encourages two kinds of creatures to join his song of praise.

Living Beings should Worship

First, all the angelic hosts. Angels first appear in Genesis chapter 3 when God placed Cherubim to guard the now emptied Garden of Eden. They show up right throughout Scripture. They comfort Jesus after his forty day temptation and are available to him, should he want to call them, when arrested in Another Garden. Angels seem to be ordered in ranks with archangels such as Michael at the "top" and then the ordinary angels who serve us (Hebrews 1:14). 

Angels are a reminder that there is a parallel world of living beings all around us. If we know the Lord, angels are protecting us and serving us. It is most likely that you have been recently served and preserved by an angel or two. My dad used to pray over our family, "protect us from dangers seen and unseen."

Unlike we, who should serve the Lord obediently, but so often fail, the angels do everything God requires, without fault, says David. That is why Jesus was able to encourage us to pray that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven - in heaven his will is done by the angels who follow precisely all of God's commands.

Well, says David, angels and heavenly hosts, ought to praise the Lord:

²⁰ Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
²¹ Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.

Not because he has saved them, because the angels never fell into sin. They have reason enough, however, for they owe their creation and ongoing sustenance to him (no-one has self-existence or self-sustenance in them, God alone is not only the fount of his own existence but the source of his own life). 

Things that are not "alive" should Praise God

And then David encourages everything else God has made to praise him, including those things that we do not consider capable of praise, all his works:


²² Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Stars and planets, galaxies and black holes, quasars and quarks, rocks and oceans, sky and sea - everything God has made should praise God. 

I don't know how nature praises God! Just by being unbelievably complex and beautiful, they exalt their Designer!

One day, we read, "the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:12)

Have you ever thought of this: many species of living creatures remain to this day undiscovered. New ones are being sighted, named and catalogued every year. 

Humans may not have known about these creatures, but God has known about them all along. And they have given him "praise" long before they were known to us. The earth belongs to God and brings him joy and praise before it brings us delight. These creatures were designed to glorify God first; and then created for our benefit second.

Deep in the sea, creatures bright and beautful, unseen by mankind, are the delight of their Maker, and give him praise.

Hear it one More Time

David ends, where he began, with a command to his soul:

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

Unlike all of God's other creatures, we have an additional reason to praise God: we have been Redeemed. And it seems to me, from the book of Revelation, that the great objects of heaven's praise will be the salvation of our souls and The Lamb who was slain. He is worth to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise.

Summing it Up

There is only one proper response to Psalm 103, and that is to renew our commitment to be a person and a people of praise.

In the often gloom-laden secular atmosphere of lockdown we have a thousand reasons to praise God, both providential and redemptional.

Praise God!

A SONG FOR THE DAY
It would be remiss of us to miss out one of the best-loved hymns based on Psalm 103, written in 1834 by Henry Lyte, as we close these Psalm 103 meditations.

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;
to his feet your tribute bring.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
evermore his praises sing.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise the everlasting King!

Praise him for his grace and favor
to his people in distress.
Praise him, still the same as ever,
slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Glorious in his faithfulness!

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;
well our feeble frame he knows.
In his hand he gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Widely yet his mercy flows!

Angels, help us to adore him;
you behold him face to face.
Sun and moon, bow down before him,
dwellers all in time and space.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise with us the God of grace! 

Henry Lyte


You can hear this majestic hymn in many versions, here is ONE and here is  ANOTHER.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Dear Father in heaven,

We thankyou for the pslamist's timely reminder to praise you. Help us to look beyond ourselves and our circumstances and worship you.

We  join our voices with the cosmic chorus of worshippers today and praise your great and holy name.

We thank you for the angels who minister to your people and who do your bidding without hesitation or fault. Oh that we were like them!

We  thank you for all the additional reasons we have for praise. We thank you for sins forgiven, for your Fatherly compassion and your everlasting love.

We worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

In Jesus' Name,

Amen.

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [32] God's Children

Ulrich Zwingli's brush with the Plague

In 1519, the year after Ulrich Zwingli came to Zurich he was laid low with the plague.

Zwingli is a somewhat forgotten Swiss reformer. We have all heard of Luther and Calvin, but not many of us have heard of Zwingli. And yet, independent of Martin Luther, but about the same time, God mightily used him to preach the Gospel in Zurich.

If anyone doubts that a reformation in Europe was needed, they need only to step back to Avignon a century and a half before and read about the wickedness of the popes who lived there. As though in judgement on that city, the plague of 1348 took the lives of half the population of that city.

Zwingli arrived in Zurich in 1518. In the summer of the following year while on vacation the plague broke out in Zurich so he returned home to care for his flock. In the course of his duties he contracted the plague. Many people thought he would never recover.

He wrote a hymn while on his sick bed, which charters his sickness and recovery. I quote a few verses:

Lo! at the door
I hear death's knock
Shield me, O Lord,
My strength and rock.

The hand once nailed
Upon a tree,
Jesus, uplift-
And shelter me....

My pains increase:
Lord, stand thou near.
Body and soul
Dissolve with fear...

And then his recovery:

My God, my Sire,
Heal'd by thy hand,
Upon the earth
I once more stand...

With Zwingli's recovery came a renewed zeal to serve God. One biographer put it like this: "The Gospel, which had hitherto been too much regarded by him as a mere doctrine, now became a great reality. He arose from the sepulchre with a new heart. His zeal became more active, his life more holy; his preaching more free, more Christian and more powerful."

Zwingli's brush with the plague was used by God to rouse him spiritually.

Oh may our modern plague have the same effect on us and the church and the world!

God, our Father

Our verses from Psalm 103 today, are all about the Fatherhood of God, and especially how God the Father treats his children.

 As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
¹⁵ The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
¹⁸ with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

The Old Testament writers did not really understand the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God was revealing himself little by little over time, and then all of a sudden, as in a flash of lightning, he revealed himself fully through his Son, the Word of God.

Everything obscure about God in the Old Testament becomes clear through the Word.

So when David was writing Psalm 103, he uses the analogy of the LORD being like a father. But we, having been adopted into God's family, read these six verses as wonderful descriptions of God the Father's care for us.

The Beauty of the Father's Love

Notice the beauty of our Father's love.

Our Father is compassionate, verse 13
  
As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

Compassion is what happens when a heart of love hears about a sorrow in the life of the one it loves: it moves, it is empathetic and sympathetic. Just as a father is naturally moved at the plight of a child, so God is moved at the plight of each of his children. The opposite of compassion is a stone-cold response to knowledge of someone's sorrow.

God feels deeply for us.

Our Father knows how weak we are, verses 14-16 

 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
  The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.

Because God made us, because he was there when we were first formed, he knows how weak and fragile and frail we are. So frail that a tiny little virus, far smaller than any human cell can take us away.

David contrasts the eternity of God's love with the short span of our lives. We are here just for a moment in time - and then we are gone. Like the annual plants of the field, whether grasses or flowers, that are here today and gone tomorrow. So it is with us.

Worse, once we are gone, no-one will remember us, not really. Yes we are sort of remembered but just as the ground of this year does not remember the plants that grew last year - it is concerned only with the new grass, the latest grass - so too we will soon be forgotten (though not by God.)

David isn't trying to discourage us, he's writing all this to remind us that we really are very weak and small and insignificant - and YET we are known and loved by God! 

Our Father's love for us never ends, verses 17-18
   
But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
¹⁸ with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

By contrast to our grass-like, flower-like transient existence, God's majestic love endures forever, for he lives forever.

Human love comes and goes. In the last ten years, can you not trace in your own life the mist-like nature of human love? Are there not people who once loved you but do not any more? Time and distance and events and even death have separated them from you.

But, says David, there is a love that never comes to an end. A forever love, an eternal love.

You and I are loved with everlasting love. 

At first sight, verses 17 and 18 seem to be talking about a conditional love. For David says that God loves "those who fear him" and "those who keep his covenant" and "remember to obey his precepts."

So is the Father's love conditional or not?

It's not conditional, no. The prodigal's father loved the son right througout his son's wanderings. God's love is radically unconditional. That's what covenantal ove means. It is based on a binding agreement God has made with us through the death of his Son, in the New Covenant.

On the other hand, David's words remind us that the love of God, this kind of amazing love, demands the response of godly living.

How could it be otherwise? "I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies [your whole embodied lives] as living sacrifices.." (Romans 12:1)

Summing it all Up

Think of the kindest, gentlest, most generous parent - ever.  Then multiply up that kindness, that gentleness, that generosity. Good human parents are, in Scripture, faint models and echoes of God's Fatherhood.

God, our Father loves all those who love his Son, "The one who loves me will be loved by my Father" (John 14:21), "the Father himself loves you because you have loved me" (John 16:27).

He loves you and I, his adopted sons and daughters with an everlasting love.

Whenever we feel that "no-one loves us" let us remember this great love, born in eternity past, forged at the cross and lasting for ever. 

A SONG FOR TODAY
My guess is that not many of my readers know this hymn, perhaps because it comes from an American stable. I used to sing it as a child with my parents and five brothers and sisters. 

The love of God is greater far

  Than tongue or pen can ever tell.

It goes beyond the highest star

  And reaches to the lowest hell.

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

  God gave His Son to win;

His erring child He reconciled

  And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!

  How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure—

    The saints’ and angels’ song.

When hoary time shall pass away,

  And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall;

When men who here refuse to pray,

  On rocks and hills and mountains call;

God’s love, so sure, shall still endure,

  All measureless and strong;

Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—

  The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

  And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

  And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

  Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

  Though stretched from sky to sky.

Frederick Martin Lehman.

You can sing along with it HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our gracious God and loving Father,

You have loved us and by your grace you have given us eternal encouragement and good hope, we turn our hearts to you once more, and praise you for your fatherly love for us.

Thank you that you know our frailty and our transiency.

Remind us of your everlasting love, and teach us to respond to all your mercies by laying down our whole embodied lives as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to you, which is the spiritual act of worship you deserve.

We ask these things, in the precious name of our Redeemer,

Amen. 

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [31] Sins be Gone!

Can God "just forgive"?

I remember a short conversation with a Muslim friend. I asked him how Allah forgave sins. He told me that Allah who is merciful can just forgive wrongdoing at his own choice. He just has to say "I forgive" and the deed is done. End of.

Can the God of the Bible "just forgive?"

Well no, no way, not at all. 

Just as a court judge cannot just decide to pardon a murderer, so the God of the Bible cannot just decide to forgive sins. To do so would be to overlook sin. To do so would be to be guilty of injustice, for then there would exist, somewhere in the cosmos a wrongdoing that was never paid for, a criminal set whimsically free.

A judge who simply, at his own free choice or whim sets a guilty man free is not a good judge, he is an evil judge.

All wrongdoing must be paid for, somewhere, somehow. That is the principle of human justice, which is an echo of divine justice.

The Way of Forgiveness

For God to be the Just Judge over the Cosmos, which he is (Genesis 18:25), every single sin must be punished. Big Hitler Sins and little "white lie" sins. All sins, every sin.

And the penalty for all sins, "little" and "big" is death. "When you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17). The wages of sin is death. There is no forgiveness of any sin without the shedding of blood. (Hebrews 9:22)

That puts you and I in dire straits. For our sins are many.

The two main intertwined categories of sin are not loving God and not loving our neighbour. Next, sins can be catalogued as sins of commision and sins of ommision. So even if we always did right, which we can't, we would still be guilty of the good we could have done but did not do.

Our sin is great, our sins have "overwhelmed us" (Palm 38:4), "like a burden too heavy to bear."

Old Testament saints went to the temple with their sacrifical animal, laid their hand on its head, symbolising that the animal was dying in their place. Once the animal was killed they were "forgiven."

Well, not quite. For the blood of animals cannot take away sin. The Old Testament sacrifices were signposts to the One Sacrifice which alone can take away sin. Old Testament saints faintly saw the cross by faith and longed for the true sacrifice.

"Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:28)

A Person has to die for people. A Perfect Man if he is to be dying for the sins of others, rather than just his own. And a Divine Man has to die for the sins of God's people, for a mere man could not bear the load of nigh-on infinite punishment.

All our Psalm 103 verses today must be read in the light of Jesus' Death;

 He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

The Many Splendoured Sides of Forgiveness

Let's explore the many sides of God's unique forgiveness, revealed in these verses:

God is no longer angry at us (verse 9)
God was once angry at us - not human angry, which is a mixture of righteous anger and over the top sinful revenge / hatred / etc. Divine anger is the automatic self-controlled revulsion of God's pure Being towards all wrongdoing. God can't even look at iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13).

But when God gave us the gift of faith in his Son and true repentance, his anger was turned away from us - for good! (It was turned onto his Son who absorbed and extinguished it in full on the cross).

Brother, sister! God is not angry with you anymore!

God does not treat us as sinners (verse 10)
God doesn't have a wrong attitude towards us. You know how if someone has done you wrong, it is all too easy to harbour a wrong attitude towards them which can so easily come out in wrong behaviour. God does not treat us as our sins deserve!

The prodigal son is given a ring, robe, shoes and a banquet!

God loves us as high as the heavens are above the earth (verse 11)
Now David does two comparisons. The first is up and down. How high are the heavens? Well, a long way up! That's how much God loves us.

Remember?

Wide, wide as the ocean,
high as the Heaven above;
deep, deep as the deepest sea
is my Saviour’s love.
I, though so unworthy,
still am a child of his care,
for his word teaches me
that his love reaches me ev'rywhere.

God has put our sins away from us (verse 12)
Now the other comparison - not up/down now, but East/West. How far is the East from the West? Well, infinite! This time the span of space is not related to how much God loves us but how far he has removed our sins from us.

He has disconnected our sins from us. When he thinks of us, he does not also think Sin A, Sin B, all the way to Sin Z.

He has removed those sins from us. He has chosen to forget them. That is incredible, since God is all-knowing.

God deliberately chooses not to remember, not to bring to mind, not to recall all our wrongdoing.

Summing it All Up

This quality of forgiveness has no parallels under heaven. No human being can forgive like this. This divine forgiveness flows directly out of the love of God for sinners, and was forged in the dark moments of the cross of Jesus Christ.

So we end with two applications. Number 1,  "thank you for the cross."

And Number 2, if we are asking ourselves, "How should I forgive my brother?" we have much to learn from God's forgiveness.

Let us not be angry with them, let us not treat them as they deserve, let us love them and try our best not to bring their sins back to mind.

A SONG FOR THE DAY
It would be hard to find a better suited one than Matt Redman's:

Jesus Christ, I Think Upon Your Sacrifice
You Became Nothing, Poured Out To Death
Many Times I’ve Wondered At Your Gift Of Life
And I’m In That Place Once Again
I’m In That Place Once Again

And Once Again I Look Upon The Cross Where You Died
I’m Humbled By Your Mercy And I’m Broken Inside
Once Again I Thank You
Once Again I Pour Out My Life

Now You Are Exalted To The Highest Place
King Of The Heavens, Where One Day I’ll Bow
But For Now I Marvel At Your Saving Grace
And I’m Full Of Praise Once Again
I’m Full Of Praise Once Again

And Once Again I Look Upon The Cross Where You Died
I’m Humbled By Your Mercy And I’m Broken Inside
Once Again I Thank You
Once Again I Pour Out My Life [2] 

Thank You For The Cross
Thank You For The Cross
Thank You For The Cross, My Friend

You can hear it HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our prayer today comes out of the Common Book of Prayer: 

Almighty and most merciful Father,

We have wandered and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have offended against your holy laws.

We have left undone those things that we ought to have done; and we have done those things that we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.

But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us sinners.

Spare those who confess their faults.

Restore those who are penitent, according to your promises in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may live a disciplined, righteous and godly life, to the glory of your holy name.

Amen.

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [30] Abounding Grace!

John Bunyan's Spiritual Story

Grace in the midst Plague and Fire

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, also wrote his testimony, which he called "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." Bunyan was referring to himself, the chief of sinners.

The spiritual biography was published in the year of the tragic Great Fire of London and the year after the deadly Great Plague which took the lives of almost one quarter of the population of that great city. 100,000 souls passed into the night.

Bunyan's spiritual biography was, so to speak, a calming balm in the midst of deep calamity.

He took the "abounding grace" from Romans 5:20 which says that where sin increased, so grace increased even more. Sin can never outdo grace! The grace of God always outruns sin. No man or woman can say "I'm too great a sinner to be saved." No Christian can ever say "God can never forgive me for that sin."

John Bunyan looked at his own sinfulness and concluded that he was a prime example of God's grace abounding to the "chief of sinners" (a title he borrowed from the apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 1:15).

Grace is God loving unlovely people. What a beautiful thing grace is! 

Today, our verses from Psalm 103 are some of the most grace-filled words in the whole of the Old Testament. So we will have to slow down for a few days to absorb all the meaning!

Today, just a couple of verses will have to suffice:

He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
⁸ The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.

 God's Character is Revealed through his Actions

David says that the Lord, verse 7, has revealed himself, revealed his character, through the deeds he did for Israel. 

Verse 7 - "He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel..."

As Israel journeyed with God, God's actions towards them revealed his character. That is how God the invisible, made himself known. How God responds to his people in different situations, reveals what he is like.

This is also how people reveal their characters, is it not? If someone always keeps their promises to you, then you know they are reliable. We do not learn character from what a person says about themselves, we learn character from their actions. 

Actions, we say, speak louder than words.

Over the hundreds of years of Israel's history, God revealed his character by the way he behaved towards them.

Israel, for her part, also revealed her character by her actions! And Oh Dear! What a wayward people they were! We recall their rebelliousness, their thanklessness, their complaining and their faithless and rampant turning away to other gods! (Are we all that different? We ought to be.)

And yet! And yet! God stuck with them, provided for their needs, led them through the desert and protected them from all their enemies!

That is what grace is.

Grace is God's love and kindness towards us in spite of what we are and do. It's not something to be abused, "I can live how I please," but it can too easily be taken for granted. The purpose of this psalm is to remember and praise God for his grace. 

You and I are also the recipients of abounding grace.  In spite of our many sins, foibles, weaknesses and strayings, God continues to stick by us, provide for us, lead us and protect us from harm. 

Let's hear more about grace. 

Grace upon Grace!

Verse 8 - The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

David lists four grace-attributes of God.

Compassion is a deep heart-feeling for someone in the midst of their trouble. God feels for us in our sorrows. He is not aloof and insensitive, but moved by our suffering, because, in the Person of his Son, he has walked our walk and carried our sorrows.

Graciousness, is goodness towards one even though they don't deserve it. God gives to us in spite of.

Slowness to anger is longsuffering, forbearance, having a long fuse before snapping. Ponder your past. Consider how slow you have been to respond to some command of the Lord. You knew this was what God required of you, but you delayed and procrastinated. All the while God waited and waited. He is indeed slow to anger.

Abounding in love is what it says, love in great great measure. God's love towards us has been nothing short of abounding, fullsome, bountiful. If we do not think so, we need to pull out paper and pen and begin listing his goodness towards us, just in the first three months of 2020, or just in the past few weeks of lockdown. 

And all of these blessings in spite of  our sinfulness!

Grace most revealed through Jesus Christ

Just as God's character in the Old Testament was revealed through his actions, so too his character in the New Testament is revealed through his actions. The difference is that in the New Testament, those gracious actions take place through Jesus Christ. 

Jesus reveals God to us fully. That is why he is called the Word of God. 

"No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (i.e. Jesus Christ), who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:18)

Through Jesus Christ, the grace of God has been most fully revealed. John 1:16 says, "For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace," or as another translation puts it, "From the fulness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another."

The God revealed in Psalm 103, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love, is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ. 

And most clearly in his deep suffering and ugly death. 

Jesus went through all of his suffering to rescue, not nice people, but wretched rebels. The righteous died for the unrighteous, died while we were sinners and died while we were still dead in our transgressions and sins.

Grace is God loving unlovely people. What a beautiful and praiseworthy thing grace is! 

Summing it Up

 "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love."  

We should enjoy grace - we go to bed at night, knowing we have let God down, and yet he continues to love us.

We should practice grace - to that person who has sinned against us: let us forgive them freely. And in our homes where we can so easily rub one another up the wrong way.

We should preach grace: "Sinner you can come as you are, God will pardon you."

And, teaches Psalm 103,  we should thank God for grace.


A SONG FOR THE DAY
A simple song about God's grace today. I love hymns, their depth, their accurate doctrine. But I have learnt that young Christians struggle with the long words and deep thoughts. What they need is something more immediate and comprehensible, so that they can worship God today. Why should their worship journey only begin after they have been converted for ten years? That has changed my whole attitude towards shorter and simpler songs. 

These days I love to sing the simpler songs of worship. 

God of grace, I turn my face to You;
I cannot hide
My nakedness, my shame,
my guilt, are all before Your eyes.

Strivings and all anguished dreams
in rags lie at my feet,
And only grace provides
the way for me to stand complete.

And Your grace clothes me in righteousness,
And Your mercy covers me in love.
Your life adorns and beautifies.
I stand complete in You.

Chris Bowater

You can hear it HERE. 

A PRAYER FOR TODAY

Our gracious and loving Father,

We echo the psalmist and praise you with our inmost beings. We praise your holy name as we remember all your benefits.

We are not the people we should be; forgive us, cleanse us and renew us in our daily repentance.

We thank you for your wonderful grace to us. We thank you for your deep compassion, for your long-suffering and your abounding love to us. We thank you that all of your grace has come to us through Jesus Christ.

Help us to live grace-filled lives in the power of your Spirit, rejoicing in your grace, extending grace to those who offend us, and preaching grace to the lost.

Help us in these trying times to be filled with your Spirit and to exhibit in our homes, with our loved ones, the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit.

We ask these things in Jesus' Name

Amen.

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [29] Thinking Beyond Ourselves

Those Unusual Verses

Have you ever read a chapter or passage of Scripture only to suddenly find a verse or two which simply did not seem to fit the context? And perhaps which even seemed to jar with the surrounding verses?

Like an island which was not on the explorer's map? 

An unexpected island says to the explorer, "Sit up, here's something for you to take note of, something new for you to learn." 

In the law books of the Old Testament, for example, the religious regulations are all "mixed up" with the secular ones; one set have to do with the temple, the other to do with civic life, such as farming, diseases, law and order, and so on. This unusual arrangement is designed to show that in God's eyes all of life is one. We cannot divide life up into "church" and "work," or "spiritual" and "secular." Life is a whole, all of it lived under God's loving rule.

As we are making our way through Psalm 103, we suddenly come across some unusual verses.

The psalmist began by encouraging himself to praise God, "Praise the Lord, O my soul..." (verses 1-5) and next he will explain new reasons to praise God (verses 6-12). But!

But in between 1-5 and 6-12 are these words:

"The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed."

These words just don't seem to fit in with the note of deep personal praise! The same sort of thing happens again in verse 19:

"The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all."

The clue for these unexpected islands is that both of them are about God's world-wide concerns and activities.....

The Danger of a Self-Centred Life

 ....you see in the midst of verses that speak of personal blessings  it is all to easy to forget the Big Wide World Out There that God loves, cares for and rules over.

So as we, the reader-explorer, sail through calm oceans of personal divine blessing, God dots a few islands about here and there which are designed to shout, "What about the wider world?" "It's not just about you!" "It's not just about the church!"

In these days of self-isolation and lockdown, it could be all too easy to batten down the hatches, pull up the draw bridges and focus on Number 1; my safety, my wellbeing, my excercise, my mental health. Or even just on we Christians.

But God says "there are other people in the world too." What an opportunity God has given us in this Covid-19 era to reach out to others. Some with practical help. Others with just a phone call. Others with the Gospel, by inviting them to watch our online church services on Sunday, or.....

That's why - it seems to me -  in the middle of a nice homely, spiritual, warm, comforting personal psalm, God has included verse 6 and verse 19.

Summing it Up 

And so, in the same vein, and with the attention-seeking style of the pslamist, a short blog today instead of a longer one, and with the same purpose of verses 6 and 19, "also think about God's bigger world."

Remember what Jesus said to his inward and Israel-focussed disciples?

"I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."  (John 10:16)

How can we use the opportunities God has presently afforded us to share the Gospel, by deed and word?

• a loving act towards a neighbour
• a phone call to someone you know is alone
• an email or text - or card! - to someone  
• a Gospel tract or booklet to someone who has time to read
• more time to pray for unbelievers?
• wisely sharing why you are at peace in the midst of the storm
• make sure we are still giving  to the work of the Gospel in our local churches and beyond 
• something else....?

I think of the rousing hymn written by missionary-to-China Frank Houghton at a time when persecution was on the increase. It challenges all Christians to rise to their missionary task:

Facing a task unfinished
That drives us to our knees
A need that, undiminished
Rebukes our slothful ease
We, who rejoice to know Thee
Renew before Thy throne
The solemn pledge we owe Thee
To go and make Thee known

Where other lords beside Thee
Hold their unhindered sway
Where forces that defied Thee
Defy Thee still today
With none to heed their crying
For life, and love, and light
Unnumbered souls are dying
And pass into the night

Ours is the same commission
The same glad message ours
Fired by the same ambition
To Thee we yield our powers
We go to all the world
With kingdom hope unfurled
No other name has power to save
But Jesus Christ The Lord

O Father who sustained them
O Spirit who inspired
Saviour, whose love constrained them
To toil with zeal untired
From cowardice defend us
From lethargy awake!
Forth on Thine errands send us
To labour for Thy sake

(though it's not our song for the day, you can hear is HERE)

A SONG FOR THE DAY
I have chosen instead a modern song which also calls the the church to reach out to those in darkness, written by the duo Getty & Townend.

O Church, arise, and put your armour on;
Hear the call of Christ our Captain.
For now the weak can say that they are strong
In the strength that God has given.
With shield of faith and belt of truth,
We’ll stand against the devil’s lies;
An army bold, whose battle-cry is Love,
Reaching out to those in darkness.

Our call to war, to love the captive soul
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole,
We will fight with faith and valour.
When faced with trials on every side
We know the outcome is secure,
And Christ will have the prize for which He died,
An inheritance of nations.

Come see the cross, where love and mercy meet,
As the Son of God is stricken;
Then see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet,
For the Conqueror has risen!
And as the stone is rolled away,
And Christ emerges from the grave,
This victory march continues till the day
Every eye and heart shall see Him.

So Spirit, come put strength in every stride,
Give grace for every hurdle,
That we may run with faith to win the prize
Of a servant good and faithful.
As saints of old still line the way,
Retelling triumphs of His grace,
We hear their calls and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in glory.

You can hear it HERE.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY

Our Lord God in heaven, 

We come to you in Jesus' Name, and acknowledge that your kingdom rules over all. 

We remember in these days when our focus can be too inward and even selfish, your great love for mankind. We remember that you so loved the whole world that you sent your one and only Son.

Forgive us when we forget our mission to make disicples and the reason the Holy Spirit was given to us, so that we would become witnesses.

Help us to know where to start. Show us who we can serve. Help us to give of our time, our prayers and our money, to reach a lost world with the only Gospel of Hope.

We ask these things in Jesus' Name

Amen

Daily Devotions for Difficult Times [28] Praise the Lord!

The Blessing of Singing

We all know instinctively, and perhaps by stories people have told us, the value of singing. In our lockdown world people are joining online choirs or singing from balconies; in one street, a church minister led the locals in Amazing Grace.

Even the scientists agree that singing does us good.  In an article in the British Medical Journal, entitled, Sing Your Heart Out: community singing as part of mental health recovery, they comment on the value of one community project:

"We heard the participants calling the initiative a 'lifesaver' and that it 'saved their sanity.' Others said they simply wouldn't be here without it, they wouldn't have managed. So, we quickly began to see the massive impact it was having. All of the participants we spoke to reported positive effects on their mental health as a direct result of taking part in the singing workshops. For some, it represented one component of a wider programme of support. For others, it stood out as key to their recovery or maintenance of health. But the key thing for everyone was that the Sing Your Heart Out model induced fun and happiness."

Many titles in the book of Psalms contain the Hebrew description mizmor - which means "this is a poem to be sung with stringed instruments." Mizmor was then translated psalmos in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and that's where we get our English title, Psalms.  The book of Psalms is a book of poems to be sung with stringed instrument.

If Methodism was "born in song," it seems to me that every true renewing or refreshing of the soul involves song. "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord..." is the exhortation of Scripture (Ephesians 5:19). (The "speak to one another" reminds us that congregational singing is aimed at edifying others.)

In these gathering-free days are you singing in front of your laptop / telly each Sunday morning!? Is it a performance to watch or a participation?

Singing the praises of God does our soul good, whether we can sing in tune or not.

Our devotionals this morning, continue in the Psalms, now we turn to Psalm 103, one of the best known and loved praise psalms of all. We take the Psalm at a different pace from Psalm 23, now a few verses at a time.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Talking to Yourself

When 'I were a lad' talking to yourself was regarded as a mental health problem, and probably if I walked in the streets talking to myself outloud today, that would still be regarded as a little odd. (Though I regularly pass a man in my area praying outloud - and sometimes singing praises - during his lunchtime walks.)

The truth is that we all talk to ourselves internally, and it is a necessary part of our make-up. Inwardly we weigh this thought and that idea, and arrive at wiser conclusions for having done so.

The psalmist, who sets up the pattern for all true believers, is ALWAYS talking to himself. In these first five verses of Psalm 103 his conversation is a command: he commands himself to Praise God.

Why? Because, when left to our undirected selves, we too infrequently praise God. Without a command, we fail to do our souls good or give glory to God, regularly enough.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits-

Why Inmost Being?

David, and it is David for this psalm, urges his inward being to praise God. Is this because it is too easy to give lip service rather than heart worship?

As our family gather together around our church's YouTube Sunday morning services (found HERE if you don't live in Worcester), my boys tell me that I'm not singing in time (that isn't all they say about my singing.) Maybe! I do know, however, that I am singing from my heart. 

It is possible to lisp words half-heartedly, and I think men are more guilty of this than our sisters, rather than belting them out from the heart, which we ought to do.

So sing up brothers!

So David encourages hismelf, and us in the process, to make sure that the heart, the seat of all our emotions, the real deep we, is engaged as we praise the Lord.

Recall all of God's Soul Blessings

David now lists all of God's soul blessings to fire up worship:

³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

"Soul" commands David, "reel off all the ways God has blessed you and thank God for them."

First off, the forgiveness of our sins - correction, the forgiveness of ALL our sins. Through the single sacrifice of Jesus, all our sins have been dealt with and paid on the nail.

Then through the Spirit 's work in our heart, all the twisted diseases of our souls, the wayward paths, the crooked thoughts, the perverse attitudes, little by little are being fixed. 

Oh, I know some thorns will not be removed until the world to come. 

Then he redeems our lives from the pit. The pit or dungeon in Scripture is always a negative thing. Both Joseph and Jeremiah get thrown into one of them, with ill intention.

Our souls were headed for destruction - both an empty life in this world and eternal damnation in the next - until God stepped in and lifted us out of the pit. 

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.

Then he "crowns me with love and compassion."  Do we remember how the prodigal's father treated his repentant son? He put a ring on his finger, a fine coat on his back and shoes on his feet! Then the banquet. God has done that with us, in making us adopted sons, and even brothers of his one and only true Son, though we deserve none of it.

What we deserve is God's wrath, but in the place of punishment, he puts a crown of love and compassion upon us!

And finally, he satisfies the desires of the soul with "good things" so that our  "youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

There are whole sermons just there!

Before Christ found us, our souls found a sort of satisfaction in evil things, empty things, futile things. But the idols we once worshipped did not really satisfy our God-hungry souls. 

The great Augustine of Hippo, who chased a thousand idols before he was converted, put it like this:

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

Have you noticed how quickly rockers age? The dumb idols of our fallen nature, whether drink, food, drugs, sex, fame, whatever, do not bring men to the fountain of youth, instead they weather them into old craggy sea dogs.

But David can say that since his soul has tasted of the Lord, since the desires of his heart have been truly satisfied with living waters, he feels renewed, refreshed, as if he was a young man.  

“They shall still bear fruit in old age: they shall be fresh and flourishing" is the promise of God to the godly in the winter of their lives (Psalm 92:14)

The eagle is a perennial symbol of effortless flying. Using thermals it seems barely to flap its long long wings!

"Using thermals" is the key. It rides off the back of air currents. It's effort comes from without.

So for the worshipping, praising and resting soul.  "Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31). 

Perhaps we thought that the Psalm had begun too energetically,"get yourself praising!"Now he is floating on eagles' wings.

The psalmist knows full well that personal self-discipline in the department of praise leads to airborne soul-flight, lifted high by the Spirit of Jesus, the Jesus who promises to those who believe, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

How is my praise life? How is yours? This psalm is a gentle encouragement to praise God for all our many spiritual blessings.

A SONG FOR THE DAY

"200 million people can't be wrong!" (Sometimes.) That's how many times our song for this new day has been viewed on YouTube. (If Ads get in the way, download an Adblocker. I have.)

Bless the Lord, oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Bless the Lord, oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

Matt Redman

SING it HERE.

 A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our loving Father in heaven,

We thank you for this new and beautiful Tuesday. 

We thank you for the gift of music, and especially the joy and blessing of singing your praises.

Help us to teach our souls to sing your praises.

We bless you for the multitude of spiritual blessings you have favoured our souls with. We thank you for the forgiveness of all our sins, for the healing of our soul's diseases, for redeeming our life from the pit, crowning us with love and compassion, satisfying our soul's desires with good things and for renewing our youth.

Teach us to be thankful people, always thankful.

In Christ's Name, through whom all these blessings flow, we ask these things,

Amen

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [27] God's Forever House

 

Notes from Lockdown UK (/world)

Last Saturday morning, glorious and sunny, I walked into town for some shopping.

What a strange journey!

At the start of my excursion someone asked me about "God and Coronavirus."

The roads were empty of cars and the pavements destitute of people. I did not have to press one pedestrian crossing button. Bird song, normally drowned by tyre-noise, pierced the silence. Car parks were deserted, except for one which had attracted a band of travellers.

Few shops are open. Some have unusual signs on their locked doors, owners worried about losing their customers for good. One says "We'll be be back soon" another thanks their customers and encourages them to return.

A meat shop is open, and so too a sweet shop, not sure why;  but otherwise, the city centre is a ghost town - on its busiest day!

As I begin to supermarket queue, 2 metres from fellow shoppers, conversations begin - shoppers don't normally talk to one another.  One man tells me he thinks it's all hyped up. But, with his kids, he has buried a Coronavirus time capsule under the ground. Filled, I guess, with Coronavirus memorabilia. In a wood somewhere in Worcester. He hopes it will be dug up in centuries to come.

Just when I am at the front of the queue, a healthcare worker darts in front of me. That's OK. But she is stopped by the security man who is very strict - I guess some people have been blagging their way to the front of long queues. She has no identity card so has to open up a work email with official logos to jump the line.

The shop allows only sixty people inside at a time, so it's a quiet amble around, trying to obey the new tape markings on the floor and the arrows down the aisles.

Later that day a brother from Canada calls to describe exactly the same lockdown scenario in Toronto! Canadian workers can receive a cheque for $2000 per month - but if it is discovered that they were not eligible for it they will have to pay it all back after the storm has passed.

On my way home I wonder how the homeless are faring, without the crowds from whom they beg. I find one lone tramp. He pulls a teddy bear out of his bag, speaks to it, gives it a hug and returns it.

It's far too early to know what's going on in the world or how we will look back on these strange days.

On this Easter bank Holiday Monday we have arrived at the end our Psalm 23, to the last line which reads:

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

David has spoken confidently of this present life - he knows that God's goodness and mercy will be with him, even pursue him, every single day of this life. But what about the day after the day he dies, as we all must do?  David ends his Psalm with future hope.

"...the house of the Lord..."

We notice, straight away, that David calls heaven "the House of the Lord." Heaven belongs to God. It's where the Triune God lives, in glorious loving communion, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's where God's glory fully expresses itself, and where his infinite blessedness and compassionate love is found.

The ethos of a house is shaped by the people who live there.

The house I grew up in was ordered (because of my Dad) and warm (because of my Mom). It is so with all our homes. The owner sets the tone, the note, the mood. Kids and visitors then feel the vibes.

Because heaven is God's house, no evil thing will be found there, no tempting serpent will be allowed into that new creation. To banish evil from his holy sight, God has prepared hell for Satan and his demons.

Mention of God's House, cannot but lead us to the words of Jesus who said to his disciples, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you..." (John 13).

Jesus has now prepared rooms for us in heaven. Through his death and resurrection he has made a way for us to be at peace with God. And through his Spirit of adoption we have become God's children, waiting for the glorious day when we will go to our true home. The Spirit of adoption also gives us a present and bright foretaste of that world to come.

"...I will Dwell..."

The word "dwell" in the Hebrew has within it ideas of  retiring of sitting down. We sit down at the end of a busy day. (Cruel torturers, by contrast, make people stand up for days on end.)

Heaven is the place of permanent retirement.

I do not believe in earthly retirement  because I see it nowhere in Scripture - and Scripture, not my culture, shapes my behaviour. The notion of a time spent at the end of our lives - now stretching onto decades since we live so long - dedicated to personal pleasure and hobbies is unknown in Scripture. 

The idea of a fun bit at the end of life comes from YOLO (You Only Live Once), or its sister meme "There's only One Life Live it."  If this present life is all there is, if there is no heaven to come, then why not spend your final days getting more of what you really wanted in the first half (but were prevented from doing so by bothersome 'work')? Eating out, more holidays, more sports, more hobbies, etc. 

We all need to slow down, and we are grateful for the invention of the pension which allows us to change pace as our strength is weakening. But there should be no earthly retirement for God's people. We are called, like Moses and Paul, to serve God until our dying day.

Let's save our hobbies for heaven and use all our present time and energy to build up God's kingdom,  to serve God's people and thereby to lay up treasures in heaven.

Heaven in the place where we will rest.

And yet, rest does not mean we will be inactive! No, we will serve God forever and ever...

"...and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen." (Rev 1:6)

"You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” (Rev 5:10)

“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence." (Rev 7:15)

"No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him." (Rev 22:3)

"I will dwell."

The Bible opens and closes with people dwelling in the glorious and most-blessed presence of God. The Garden of Eden was the beautiful place it was because God was there and because he spoke to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. God lived with man. The new heavens and the new earth are likewise, the wonderful place they will be because God will be there - he is both the Owner and the Host. "God himself will be with them and be their God." (Revelation 21:3).

One day, when this life is over, we too will go home to dwell with God.

Our heavenly host will be the God-man Jesus Christ. In him and through him we have already caught a glimpse of what God is truly like for, "in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." (Colosians 2:9).

Read the Gospels to remind yourself what God was and is like.

Heaven is a wonderful place,
Filled with glory and grace,
I want to see my Saviour's face,
Heaven is a wonderful place.  

When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory 

This world is not my home I'm just a passing through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me from heaven's open door 

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

"...forever."

As a child I would wonder how big the universe was. I would imagine reaching the limit of the sphere, touching it, but then of course, there must be something beyond the sphere, I reasoned. Infinity is hard to grasp, whether a child or an adult.

David's final word means exactly what it says. Heaven is forever.

Many of our present anxieties are caused by the shadow of tomorrow falling on today. We do not know how tomorrow will pan out and that brings us anxiety today. And we know that new future troubles will most certainly come upon us for "man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7)

But if the tomorrow of heaven is always glorious, then the today of heaven will always be blessed.

Let's hear that again.

If the tomorrows of heaven are always glorious, then all the todays of heaven will also be blessed. 

A SONG FOR THE DAY
Today we have two songs. The first is a beautiful and unusual rendition of Psalm 23. You can hear it HERE. One man sings four parts.

The other song is a noble attempt to catch something of the joy of heaven.

There is a higher throne
Than all this world has known,
Where faithful ones from ev’ry tongue
Will one day come.
Before the Son we’ll stand,
Made faultless through the Lamb;
Believing hearts find promised grace—
Salvation comes.

Hear heaven’s voices sing;
Their thund’rous anthem rings
Through em’rald courts and sapphire skies.
Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, pow’r,
Strength, thanks, and honor are
To God our King, who reigns on high
Forevermore.

And there we’ll find our home,
Our life before the throne;
We’ll honor Him in perfect song
Where we belong.
He’ll wipe each tear-stained eye
As thirst and hunger die.
The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King;
We’ll reign with Him.

Keith and Kristyn Getty

You can hear it HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our loving Father in heaven,

We thank you for eternal life. We thank you that this short life is not the end.

We thank you that stretching out into infinity lies our final home, with God, with the Lamb and with all of God's people.

We thank you that You will wipe every tear from our eyes - yes, and even that one.

And we thank you that there will be no more death or mourning, crying or pain, because the old order of things will have passed away.

While we journey here, help us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

Help us to hope as he did.  Because of his confident hope in the joy set before him he was able to endure, even the cross.

So may the hope of heaven inspire our hearts, fill our minds and shape our present lives,

In Jesus' Name we ask these things,

Amen.