Psalm 33

Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous;
it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
Praise the Lord with the harp;
make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the people of the world revere him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth
he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do.
No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.

This is such a beautiful Psalm.

It starts out by telling us that we need to worship Lord. We need to praise Him in song, joyfully and skillfully, as He deserves the best we have to offer. But why this praise? The psalm goes on to tell us why; For He is righteous and just. And as if that weren’t enough the psalm keeps on going and tells us about His greatness. By a word He made the heavens. He made the entire cosmos by uttering a word. The stars, these great balls of intense fire, were made by His breath. The oceans that we see and feel so small before, He simply puts them into jars. We are to revere this great God of ours! For He spoke and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm. What power is there in this one sentence? He uttered a word and it came into existence, He ordered and it stood firm. What a great God we serve! He makes void the plans of the nations - in light of the financial crisis we are facing these days, I believe it comes from Him, as His plans stand firm for ever. We have strayed so far from Him and His love, that I believe this is one of His last attempts to bring the whole world back to His thrown, before He comes back. He calls the nation blessed that follows Him - today what nation follows Him? What nation is wholly given to Him and His purposes? I think it is safe to say; none. But the Lord is watching us, He knows us inside out as He made our hearts. He loves us so much that He considers everything that we do. No matter what man does to resist, not even a king with his army can resist what the Lord has ordained. God’s eyes are on us who fear Him and hope in His unfailing love. He will deliver us from death and keep us alive during famines.
In light of who God is, this intense being that created everything that we know, that loves us enough to create us, to sustain us, to die for us, what else can we do but to cry out to Him and say that:

We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.

AMEN!

Back to Basics

This is it. I am on the ferry right now on my way home from Patmos. Its been an amazing week, but I’m ready to go home. I’m walking away so much richer than before. At the beginning of the week I was anticipating a lot of blessing as the spiritual warfare was high during the organizing stages - my anticipation was rewarded. This week has been a leap of growth in my spiritual walk as the Lord humbled me by taking me back to the basics. Bottom line, no matter how much work we do for the Lord, if it’s not followed by heartfelt prayer and spending time with Him in His Word, the work is getting dangerously close to becoming meaningless. The Lord doesn’t want our work He wants our hearts. In the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, the Lord found no fault in their work:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that
you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to
be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered
and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.”

The church of Ephesus were hard workers for the Lord, they persevered, fought battles for Him, found out false prophets and kicked them out, they did not grow weary, all in all they were generally good Christians BUT the Lord found one fault with them:

“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."

They had lost their first love. They were working FOR the Lord not WITH the Lord and He does not like that for He keeps on going:

“Remember the height from which you have fallen!
Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, 

I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.”

The Lord views it as a fall, a matter of which that needs repentance - a complete turn around. If our heart isn’t in the right place - in tune with the Lord - no matter what we do for Him, it wont be pleasing to Him, so much so that He will remove our lampstand from this place! Working for the Lord, out of tune with His heart, is a dangerous place to be.
Mark 12:33 says:

“To love Him with all your heart,
with all your understanding and with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than
all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

To love Him is more important than offerings and sacrifices. What are the offerings and sacrifices of our day, since we don’t slaughter lambs and bulls to Him anymore? Our offerings and our sacrifices up to the Lord are our lives with all of our deeds and works. Yet if we do it without loving Him completely everything we do is meaningless. Non-believers do a lot of good works too, yet our salvation is not by works, but a gift from God. A gift He gives us in exchange for our hearts.
I really feel like the Lord was telling me “ Janet you are Ephesus, come back to me” Recently a couple of people have called me a workaholic, that’s how much I work for His Kingdom, but in all that, prior to this week, I can’t remember when was the last time I spent time with the Lord in His Word or in prayer. I really feel like those verses in Revelation 2 were directed right to me. Another blow to me during this week was when all of us HMers, that were in Patmos, got together for about 30 min every night to pray. As we were praying I was finding it very hard to stay still before Him on concentrate on His glory and love for us as my mind was always racing to the next thing that needed to get done. During those times the Lord was telling me “You see Janet you cannot even be still before me and know that I AM God”
Through all these experiences I really feel like I need to slow down and spend more time with Him in prayer and studying His Word. Not because I have to but because I want to for I do love Him with all my heart.
Please would you pray for me in this? I need to find a delicate balance between the work that I do and spending time with Him.