Every Day is a Hallelujah Day!

                                                        

                                                         Every Day is a Hallelujah Day!

"But as for me, I will sing about Your power. 

Each morning I will sing with joy about Your unfailing love. For You have been my refuge, 

a place of safety when I am in distress" 

  Psalm 59:16

I love the way those ancient Hebrews worshipped God with such joy and exuberance!

Simple theology-- His love is unfailing. He is our place of safety!

They knew how to rejoice without reservation in their faithful and loving God and Savior.

Going to church with them must have been a lot of fun!

Later in the New Testament, Paul reminds us to share our joyful worship with others: "Speaking to one another with psalms, songs,and hymns from the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:19).

That shows we should intentionally stir up joyous worship in others also!

We, too, have expressions of great joy -- we sometimes even need help in expressing our gratitude and we ask God to 'tune my heart to sing Thy grace,' because 'streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise'!

We need God to 'tune us up' and keep us going! Even make us louder!

Maybe sometimes we even ask for angelic help and we plead, 'Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above'....

(Those lines are from the hymn Come Thou Fount.)

Another composer wishes he had a 'Thousand Tongues' to sing his praises - one is not nearly enough do the job!

What musical treasures we have!

But most of all, since we are on this side of the Cross, we have even more reason to 'Sing and make melody in our hearts to the Lord.'

What if the ancient Hebrews knew what we knew!  No psalm would ever be able to contain their joy!

So let's make this a real "Hallelujah Day" and sing His Praises all day! Let's pretend we are going to worship with them!

Is He Really Our Father? C S Lewis

                                                    Is He Really Our Father?

[Jesus said, "This then is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven....']

About The Lord's Prayer - Words from C S Lewis

"Its very first words are 'Our Father.' Do you see what those words mean? They mean,  quite frankly, that you are putting yourself in the place of a son of God.

To put it bluntly, you are dressing up as Christ.

If you like, you are pretending.

Because, of course, the moment you realize what the words mean, you realize that you are not a son of God. You are not being like the Son of God, whose will and interests are one with those of the Father; you are a bundle of self-centered fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceit, all doomed to death.

So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ, is an act of outrageous arrogance.

But the odd thing  is He ordered us to do it..."

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How Do We Become Like Christ? C S Lewis

 

                                               

                                                      How Do We Become Like Christ?

                                                                                From C S Lewis' Mere Christianity

And now we begin to see what the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians 'being born again';  it talks about them 'putting on Christ'; about Christ 'being formed in us'; about our coming to 'have the mind of Christ.'

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out -- as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out.

They mean much more than that.

They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing these things to you.

It is not a question of a good man who died 2000 years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of life He has.

At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods.

Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge, and eternity.

What Do We Worship?

Who do we worship?


The gods we worship write their names on our faces; be sure of that.

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that.

We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our heart, but it will out.

That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character.

Therefore it behooves us to be careful of what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.  

                                  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson



And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 

                               -- 2 Corinthians 3:18

The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing....RC Sproul

This is from The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul:

If I were to ask a group of Christians what the top priority of the church is, I am sure I would get a wide variety of answers. Some would say evangelism, others social action, and still others spiritual nurture. But I have yet to hear anyone talk about what Jesus' priorities were.


What is the first petition of the Lord's Prayer? Jesus said, "This then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven...'" (Matt 6) The first line of the prayer is not a petition. It is a form of personal address.

The prayer continues: "hallowed be your name, your kingdom come." We often confuse the words "hallowed be your name" with part of the address, as if the words were "hallowed is your name."

In that case the words would merely be an ascription of praise to God. But that is not how Jesus said it. He uttered it as a petition, as the first petition. We should be praying that God's name be hallowed, that God be regarded as holy.

There is a kind of sequence within the prayer. God's kingdom will never come where His name is not considered holy. His will is not done on earth as it is in heaven if His name in desecrated here. In heaven the name of God is holy. It is breathed by angels in a sacred hush. Heaven is a place where reverence of God is total. It is foolish to look for the kingdom where God is not revered.

How we understand the person and character of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives. It affects far more than what we normally call the "religious" aspects of our lives.

If God is the Creator of the entire universe then it must follow that He is the Lord of the entire universe. No part of the world is outside His Lordship. That means that no part of my life is outside His Lordship. His holy character has something to say about economics, athletics, politics, romance--everything with which we are involved.

God is inescapable. There is no place we can hide from Him. Not only does He penetrate every aspect of our lives, but He penetrates it in His majestic holiness.


Therefore we must seek to understand what holiness is. There can be no worship, no spiritual growth, no true obedience without it. It defines our goal as Christians. God has declared, "Be holy, because I am holy." (Lev. 11:44)