Because He Delights to Give - C S Lewis

 From C S Lewis -- 

"There are two kinds of love: we love wise and kind and beautiful people because we need them, but we love (or try to love) stupid and disagreeable people because they need us.

The second kind is the more divine, because that is how God loves us: not because we are lovable, but because He is love, not because He needs to receive but He delights to give."

                       He first loved us.  (1 John 4:19)

How To Celebrate the Sabbath

 

                   Psalm 92   A Song for the Sabbath day

"It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High,

 proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, 

to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. 

For you make me glad by your deeds, LORD; 

I sing for joy at what your hands have done."

                                                                            -- Psalm 92:1-4

The psalmist  titled this psalm as "A Song for the Sabbath Day."

We think of the Sabbath as a special day of rest. (To be honest, we usually don't practice it that way, though.)

What strikes me is that this Biblical Sabbath day renews strength and joy, not just through idleness and relaxation, but through energetic, joyful worship!

Celebrating His love and His faithfulness! HE makes us glad!

That's what RESTores us! 

Are we missing something?

In Times of Trouble -Thankfulness - Fanny Crosby

                 In Times of Trouble - Fanny Crosby

"Though sometimes He leads thru waters deep
Trials fall across the way
Tho sometimes the path seems rough and steep
See His footprints all the way!" 

From He Keeps Me Singing



"For I know whate'er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well"

"Though my weary steps may falter, and my soul athirst may be
Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see"

"When my spirit, cloth'd immortal, wings its flight to realms of day
This is my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way."

From All the Way My Savior Leads Me



I can't sing or pray this hymn without thinking about the author -- Fanny Crosby--and thanking God for His work through her! Just thinking about her, blind since a child, and living to be 95 years old! and her utter dependence on Him who "led her all way" brings tears of joy. 

She wrote over seven thousand hymns. Most people's favorite, is, I guess, Blessed Assurance.

Blessed assurance -- Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine (and that's what it is -- a foretaste, guarantee, a deposit--of glory later)

And I love this phrase, "Echoes of mercy, whispers of love."

"This is my story, this is my song: Praising my Savior all the day long!"

Apparently one day she was visiting a friend, Mrs. Joseph Knapp, whose husband was one of the founders of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Mrs. Knapp was playing their new pipe organ, which was said to be the largest pipe organ ever placed in a private dwelling. 

She called Fanny over and asked her to listen to a new melody she was composing. She played it over several times and then asked Fanny, "What do you think the tune says?"


In just a few moments Fanny cried out enthusiastically, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!"

And the hymn was born. That was 1873 and has become a victorious rallying call for millions of people, who, with that blind poetess, praise God for loving and redeeming us -- for giving us His blessed assurance!


P.S. I also found out that Fanny, when 12 years old, enrolled in the New York City of the School for the Blind. Years later she taught there, and became a good friend of the secretary of the Board, Grover Cleveland! Fanny had, it appears, a number of friends in high places.

Psalm 29 - Thoughts from J M Boice

(1) Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,

Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

(2) Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;

Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

                                          

(3)The voice of the LORD is over the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

(4) The voice of the LORD is powerful;

The voice of the LORD is majestic.

(5) The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;

The LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon

(6) He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,

Sirion like a young wild ox.

(7) The voice of the LORD strikes

With flashes of lightning

(8) The voice of the LORD shakes the desert;

The LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

(9) The voice of the LORD twists the oaks

And strips the forest bare.

And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

(10) The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;

The LORD is enthroned as King forever.

(11) The LORD gives strength to his people;

The LORD blesses his people with peace.

--Psalm 29, A Psalm of David

Thoughts on Psalms from James Montgomery Boice:

     I do not know of any book of the Bible that requires more knowledge, more experience of life, and more skill of interpretation to understand it well than the Book of Psalms.

     It is because the psalms are so diverse.  They cover the vast range of biblical theology and the full scope of human experience -- from doubt to faith, suffering to jubilation, defeat to victory-- and they do so in an amazing variety of poetic forms.

     The psalms are so deep, so diverse, so challenging that I do not believe anyone can ever really master them.

     Moreover, as soon as the student begins to get hold of one type of psalm and thinks he understands it, he is suddenly confronted with another that is quite different...

Psalm 29

This psalm is unique, in part, because it consists totally of praise to God. Most psalms praise God, but the offered praise is mixed with other words of supplication, confession of sin, and promises of obedience.

This psalm has no other ingredients - it is purely praise.

It does not admonish us, does not challenge us to confess our sins or to live righteously.

It just acknowledges God's power and glory and praises Him!

Another remarkable feature of this psalm is the repetition of the name of the LORD (written with all caps), Jehovah, the special sacred covenant name of God.

The poem has only eleven verses, but "the LORD" (Jehovah) 

appears eighteen times!

In the middle stanza (verses 3 - 9) the phrase "voice of the LORD"

occurs seven times.

More from James Montgomery Boice:

     If you do not have a poetic spirit, you will never appreciate this psalm.

     For this is not a poem to be critically analyzed, above all not in a scientific frame of mind.

    If you keep telling yourself that the voice of God is not in thunder, that thunder is only a clashing of differently charged electronic particles, you will miss it all.

     To appreciate this psalm we have to get out in the fields, watch the majesty of some ferocious storm, and recall that God is in the storm, directing it, as He is in all other natural and historical phenomena.

Note:  Many historical commentators tell us that in the early church this psalm was often read to children or to an entire congregation during storms.  The Puritans continued that tradition.

Like so many psalms, this one is a reminder that how ever much we might enjoy reading the psalms to ourselves, throughout the history of God's people, they have been read most often by groups - and we feel the summons to pray these verses together.

Read it out loud - hear the voice of God in the thunderbolts!



What Happens First When Jesus Comes to Get Us?

What Happens First When Jesus Comes to Get Us?

From 1 Thessalonians 4:

   "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words."

    The dead in Christ will rise first....

"Today you will be with Me in paradise" is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. Happy are those who die in the Lord. Their bodies rest, but their souls are before the throne of God, praising Him, singing thankful hallelujahs to Him who washed them from their sins in His blood.

They rest from their labors, and their works follow them. Their quiet repose will never be broken until God rouses them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angelic watchers, veiled by eternal mysteries, they sleep on,  inheritors of unspeakable glory until the fulness of time shall come, bringing complete body and soul redemption.

What an awakening it will be! They were laid to rest, weary and worn, but they will not rise in that condition. They will wake up in youthful beauty and glory. The shriveled seed, so devoid of beauty and design, rises from the dust a glorious flower! The winter of the grace becomes the spring of redemption and the summer of glory.

Blessed is their death since, through God's divine power, He removed their working clothes and dressed them in royal wedding garments. Blessed are those who sleep in Jesus.

We have so many reasons to praise the Lord! Here is just one reason -- for the joy yet to come!

"Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!"