Come, Let Us Worship the Lord Together

Psalm 95 is an invitation card, inviting us to worship the Lord together. It is a wonderful thing to be invited. Sometimes, when we are not invited, we feel we had been overlooked. If the President of the Philippines invited your whole family to the Palace, will you accept the invitation and go? Today, it is not an earthly king inviting you, but the Heavenly King, the King of kings and Lord of lords; how glorious this is! Psalm 95 is God’s invitation to us:

I. This is an Invitation for All, an Open Invitation The author invites us to worship. Twice, in verses 1 and 6, he said, “Come.” Verses 1 and 6 mentioned “us” seven times. The author is not inviting just any one person but he is inviting all of us to worship together. Individual worship is of course very important – praying daily, singing praises, reading the Bible and worshipping God is good. But corporate worship is truly more wonderful.

What is worship? Worship is responding to God. The English word, worship, means He is worthy of our all. Worship is not simply the act of singing praise songs, or listening to the preaching, or giving our offerings. Worship itself is a kind of response. We are saying from our hearts, “Lord, you are truly great!” and this is worship; that is, praise coming from our hearts. Worship is when we drop our treasured money into the offering box because we are giving God thanks for his grace and glory, because He is worthy. When we sing praise songs, pray, present song offerings, listen to the preaching, give offerings, we are saying to the Lord, “You are worthy!” This is worship. The author invites us again and again to worship the Lord together. Sometimes, our hearts and minds aren’t prepared, or when we are in the midst of troubles and our hearts are heavy, we find ourselves without strength to worship, and yet when we come and worship the Lord together with our fellow believers, we will influence each other, andthen, we become encouraged. This cannot be found in individual worship. Indeed, we must treasure the invitation we get each Sunday.

By Rev. Jeremiah Cheung

Full story at CBCP ORG

I am God’s Favorite

I am God’s favorite Exodus 20:18-26

18 Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”20 And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” 21 So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. 22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make anything to be with Me—gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I [a]record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. 25 And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 26 Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.’

I grew up loving the Lord – My grandmother taught me the power of God

By Pastor Kevin Mugi

Full story at Faith and Victory

GOD'S PROMISE OF DIVINE PROTECTION

Psalm 121:7-8 "The LORD shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even for evermore."

We are confident this promise in it's strictest sense was a promise to the nation of Israel, GOD'S chosen people. I also believe it is a promise to every true believer. If indeed this is true, how does God do it? There are many ways God protects us. First of all GOD has a Divine plan for every person and there is nothing that can stop it. It was established before we were born. This is called the sovereign will of GOD.

GOD has also given to every person a guardian angel to protect us from danger. Psalm 34:7 says "The angel of the LORD encamps round about them that fear him and delivers them." These are GOD'S messengers to protect us.

By Clois Clark

Full story at Faith Bible

6 Types of Grace

The average person speaks about 16,000 words per day. That's 112,000 words in a week, and nearly 6 million words a year. That's a lot of talking!

If you were to scan the entire human vocabulary for the most beautiful word in the universe, what word would you choose? Some might choose love, and I won't disagree. You can make a strong biblical case for that word (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, and John 13:34).

But if you know me, you know the word I'm going to choose - GRACE.

By Paul Tripp

Full story at Paul Tripp

8 keys to a more powerful prayer life

I love Luke 5:16 because it shows that just like you and me, Jesus needed a break from the demands of his busy life to recharge His batteries and spend time with His Heavenly Father. The life of Christ is intended to give us examples we can follow and learn from. So, even though He was God incarnate, Jesus didn’t draw on his superpowers as the Son of God when it came to facing life’s challenges. Instead, when He was exhausted or burdened or in need of spiritual refreshment, He would “slip away” to spend time praying — plugging into the power, perception, and purpose that can only be found in God’s presence.

But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. —Luke 5:16 (AMP)

Prayers to God are one of the most powerful weapons He has given us, and looking ahead, I believe it has never been more important for God’s people to be on our knees. But knowing how to pray or even how to start a prayer is not always easy. Jesus’ disciples felt the same confusion. They were familiar with the oft-repeated prayers of the Torah. But Jesus prayed with a kind of authority and power they had never seen before — as though God was listening! So when they came to Jesus, as told in Matthew 6, they didn’t say, “Teach us another prayer.” They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Full story at World Vision ORG

A Biblical Look at God’s Punishment and Discipline

In my last post, we looked at the topic of pruning. Today I want to take a biblical look at God’s punishment and discipline.

We shared how pruning benefits the vines in the vineyard. I also meandered into how God disciplines us.

Does God punish us? Is God’s discipline punitive or preventative? My meditations channeled over into chastisement, and chastening.

Have you ever been confused about how the Lord disciplines his children? I sure have, and I still don’t have all the answers, but I want to weigh in on the topic.

By Thomas McDaniels

Full story at Thomas McDaniels