Beauty for Ashes: May your heart worship

Saturday, May 2, 2009

May your heart worship

Thanks to my friend, Deb, at Counting My Blessings, for this one:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding." Job 38: 4

5 comments:

Jeri said...: Good videos for a rainy Saturday in Alabam, thanks.; May 2, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Laurie M. said...: It's a rainy Saturday here, too. Usually I don't care for the rain, but with allergy season being what it's been, I welcome it.; May 2, 2009 at 8:00 PM
Debbie said...: Laurie, my how this blessed me this morning! What a beautiful video and words. The beauty of His creation; how can I not believe in God?

It's amazing how timely it was for me to see this. I am reading a book called Crazy Love. I don't know if you've heard of it but it's written by Francis Chan, who is a pastor in Southern California. I'm only on the first chapter but he focuses on how awesome and great God is. He talks about the Creation and the beauty of all He created. So, this video went right along with that. Sometimes, I can get caught up in the details of my life and not notice things. I don't want to be that way. I want to see with my spiritual eyes and always have a joy and wonder as I see all that God made.

Have a wonderful Sunday, Laurie.; May 3, 2009 at 5:16 AM
countingmyblessings said...: Thanks Laurie for the link. I just loved this video. We are studying the Case for the Creator, by Lee Stroebel in my dh's Bible Class. Blake is my inspiration when it comes to focusing on the beauty of all that God has made. My desire is to spend more time on what He has done and is doing, than on all of the other things out there that distract me. I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday! Deb; May 3, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; July 28, 2009 at 11:08 AM

Thoughts to Ponder

“The book of Job is not only a witness to the dignity of suffering and God’s presence in our suffering but also our primary biblical protest against religion that has been reduced to explanations or 'answers'. Many of the answers that Job’s so called friends give him are technically true. But it is the 'technical' part that ruins them. They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy…On behalf of all of us who have been misled by the platitudes of the nice people who show up to tell us everything is going to be all right if we simply think such and such and do such and such, Job issued an anguished rejoinder. He rejects the kind of advice and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explanations for every circumstance. Job’s honest defiance continues to be the best defense against the clichés of positive thinkers and the prattle of religious small talk.” - Eugene Peterson

“It has become a deplorable custom that the Gospels and the Epistles are treated like law books, in which one is to learn what we are to do, and in which the works of Christ are presented as nothing but an example held before one’s eyes. Wherever this errant opinion remains within the heart, there neither gospel nor epistle can be read usefully and in a Christian way; such readers remain nothing but heathen, as before.” - Martin Luther in kirchenpostille

Matins

In Anglican worship, Psalm 95 is to be read every morning. I've heard it referred to as "the Everday Psalm". So, Why this Psalm? And why every day? It's a direct response to the dead earnest admonition of the writer to the Hebrews: "Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, while it is said, 'Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.'" (Hebrews 3:12-15)

So, before further Scripture is read, before teaching, they hear this Psalm, which is first a call to worship, and second a warning to any who are about to "hear his voice" not to harden their hearts against it:

Psalm 95
O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence
with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to
him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it;
for his hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

O that today you would hearken to his voice!
Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers tested me,
and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, "They are a people who err in heart,
and they do not regard my ways."
Therefore I swore in my anger
that they should not enter my rest.

So, let us join with our Anglican brothers and exhort one another every day, while it is called today not to forget, as Israel did in the wilderness, that our God is a God who is trustworthy and who cares for us; so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Beauty for Ashes

Pages

Saturday, May 2, 2009

May your heart worship

5 comments:

RefTagger