SUNDAY
"O Come, Let Us Sing Unto The Lord"
Today is the Lord’s Day. It is the perfect day to come before His presence with singing! Let’s start this week with ways we can come unto the Lord, beginning with singing. "O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation." (Psalms 95:1) The world does their part in singing and making a loud noise. As Christians we have much more to sing about. These Psalms give us a few reasons to sing unto the Lord our God.
"1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations." (Psalm 100)
"I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High." (Psalm 9:2)
"I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me." (Psalm 13:6)
"But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble." (Psalm 59:16)
"I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations." (Psalm 89:1)
"I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing." (Psalm 101:1)
"I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being." (Psalm 104:33)
And I say, "Amen, Glory to His name!"
MONDAY
Come Before His Presence With Thanksgiving
In our devotions yesterday we saw that we can come before His presence with singing. Today we see that we should also come before His presence with thanksgiving. The two go hand in hand. "Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms." (Psalms 95:2) We don’t need to wait until November for Thanksgiving. We can come before the Lord with thanksgiving any time. "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations." (Psalms 100:4-5) "Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:" (Psalms 147:7) In fact, one of the sacrifices in the Old Testament was the sacrifice of thanksgiving. "And when ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the LORD, offer it at your own will." (Leviticus 22:29) "And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing." (Psalms 107:22) Paul warned young Timothy of the bad deeds of the world in the last days and among the proud, blasphemers, and unholy we find them to be unthankful. (II Timothy 3:2) He also reminds us to always be thankful in I Thessalonians 5:18, "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." In the book of Psalms this thought is repeated over and over, "O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Psalms 107:1) In God’s wonderful goodness and mercy He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for my sin. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." (II Corinthians 9:15)
TUESDAY
"O Come, Let Us Worship And Bow Down"
We come to the Lord with singing. We come to the Lord with thanksgiving. Now for maybe the most important thought, we come to the Lord in worship and bow down. "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker." (Psalms 95:6) When the Lord appeared to Abraham we read that "Abram fell on his face..." (Genesis 17:3) Joshua fell on his face and worshipped when confronted with the "captain of the host of the Lord" in Joshua 5:14. Ezekiel was very descriptive in trying to tell his vision of the glory of the Lord. "And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake." (Ezekiel 1:27-28) Daniel also said, "...I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright." (Daniel 8:17-18) These were all great men of God and accomplished great things, and they all started at the same place... on their faces before the Lord. When we see how great God is, it will bring us to our knees in reverence to Him. Only then can we do great things for the Lord. "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble... Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." James 4:6 & 10)
WEDNESDAY
"Bring An Offering, And Come Into His Courts"
Today we are looking at Psalms 96:8 for our next devotion on how we are to come to the Lord. "Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts." We are to come with an offering. One of my favorite verses about giving to the Lord is Malachi 3:10, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." We even have the Word of our Lord found in Luke 6:38. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." So we see that the Word of God is very plain. The more we give to God, the more God returns back to us. We are not to give just so we will receive. But we should remember that all we have is from the Lord, and without Him we have nothing. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17) Also, He gave us the ultimate gift, and we could never repay Him. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
THURSDAY
Let Your Cry Come Unto The Lord
For the last few days we have looked at ways we come to the Lord. We come to Him with song and thanksgiving, with humbleness of heart, and with an offering. All of these are ways that we come to Him in worship. Today we see that we can come to Him in need, letting our cry come unto the Lord. "(Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD.) Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee." (Psalms 102:1) "Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word." (Psalms 119:169) When I am afflicted with sickness, I can cry unto the Lord. When I am overwhelmed by circumstances beyond my control, I know that He has ultimate control, and I can cry unto Him. When I need someone to talk to, I can come to the Lord in prayer, assured that He always hears. David knew how important our tears are to God, as we read in Psalms 56:8, "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" Many times we have needs and we try as we can to work it out on our own. When we come to the end of our resources we turn to God in prayer. What a difference it would make if we turned to God first, and let our cry come unto Him!
FRIDAY
Come With Rejoicing!
When I was just a young girl I remember going to bed weeping over the souls of the kids in our neighborhood. I prayed and cried over them, telling myself that I would be a better witness to them. There have been others that I wept over, but I found it so hard to sow the precious seed in just the right words. Psalms 126:6 has such a beautiful promise. "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." The precious seed is God's Word, as we find in the parable Jesus told of the sower. Are we sowing the seed? When we meet our blessed Savior, will we come with rejoicing?
"5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.
8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." (Luke 8:5-15)
SATURDAY
Come To Trust The Lord
The book of Ruth tells how Elimelech and Naomi left their home in Bethlehemjudah and went to the country of Moab during the time of famine. While they were in Moab their two sons married. Elimelech and the two sons died and Naomi decided to go back home. She told her daughters-in-law to go back to their families but Ruth refused to leave Naomi. "And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:" (Ruth 1:16) Ruth went to work in the fields and God led her to the fields of Boaz, who was a kinsman redeemer. He had heard of how kind Ruth had been to Naomi and told her, "The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust." (Ruth 2:12) Ruth had come to trust the Lord to be her God. God blessed Ruth and Naomi and King David was born in their line a few generations down. David wrote Psalms about trusting in the shadow of the wings of God. "How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings." (Psalms 36:7) "Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." (Psalms 63:7)
Now let's turn to the New Testament. Before the Lord went to the cross He wept over Jerusalem. "And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it," (Luke 19:41) He also said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37) Today things continue to get worse and worse in this old world. Jesus is waiting for you to come to Him and put your trust in Him as your Lord and Savior. He will put His arm around you and protect you just as a mother hen protects her chicks. I leave you with these verses from wise King Solomon. "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6)
