Praise The Lord and Be Blessed!

“Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, He who is the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 134)

Who are the servants of The Lord?

All those who proclaim to accept the Work on the Cross as a means of reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ are the servants of The Lord–those who are obedient to His Word–proclaiming what He says to all. If then, we are servants of The Lord–giving Him rulership over our lives, why do we find it so difficult to obey–Our Lord–one who governs?

The simple answer is most people don’t understand how Lordship functions as it once did in England and in other nations. It certainly doesn’t have a place in the United States because we won’t allow anyone to be “Lord over our lives” and we certainly won’t allow Holy Spirit to govern us. When a person was “the Lord” over property (a region, however designated by a king), he was the authority in the lives of those who lived on his land. Here, in America, we seem to forget that when we accept The Word on the Cross, and Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we give Him authority over our lives. A relationship with Jesus is a matter of the heart, not the head (or mind) and we allow Him to govern when we accept His Lordship; if we don’t allow Him to be Lord, all we’ve done is to be religious and ritualistic.

I’ll be the first to admit than granting someone else authority over my life is challenging and almost impossible when it comes to mere mortals. Yes, I obey the laws of the land when they don’t conflict with my relationship with God. But I will not obey the laws of the land when they are in opposition to God’s Word. That’s settled in heaven for me. But when we cannot obey God’s Word because we are more concerned about what people think or being politically correct, then we are not servants of The Lord because Jesus is not our Lord and we therefore lie–if we say He is.

When we’re in a worship service–who are we praising–God or man? Do we lift our hands in praise because we really want to honor God or we simply obeying the dictates of others who have tell us what to do?

Even if we’re not willing to admit where we are in our relationship with God–He knows–He knows our heart. And He knows if we only lift our hands because someone else directed us to to do so, our hearts don’t belong to Him.

I can lift my hands wherever I am–and often do so when I think about just how good He is. I don’t need anyone to prompt me to lift my hands or raise my voice in praise of the God who loved me enough, to come down from heaven, hang on a cross and die for me–in spite of me–and still loves me.

O that men and women and children would really understand how wonderful it is to be loved when we are not worthy! O that those who proclaim to love Jesus would be more obedient to His Love! O that all would begin to worship Him in spirit and in truth! What a wonderful, blessed world this would be if all would honor Him as Lord, obey, and love! Give Him praise and be blessed!

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Giving God His Rightful Place In Our Lives!

“LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” (Isaiah 25:1 NIV)

When we honor God, by recognizing who He is in our lives and praise Him for it, He honors His Word to us. When the prophet was speaking to God, he acknowledged God’s authority over his life and deliberately exalted Him and praised for others to hear, proclaiming His faithfulness in all things.

When we call Him, “Lord” we are acknowledging the authority we have given Him over our lives--as defined by the use of the word at the time King James authorized that translation. Lords of the land, governed and provided for those who lived on the land. Since God is our provider, and we have given Him authority over our lives, He is rightly declared–Lord.

We exalt Him--lift Him up and declare all of His wonderful works–His provisions and the miracles He works in our lives. No one else deserves the praise for what He does–He inspires, He corrects, He motivates, He pours into His wisdom, He gives us favor with men, He never leaves us alone and His Word is true for He is not a man that He should lie or change His mind.

His faithfulness towards is enduring–everlasting and without measure. All He said He would do, He does–in His timing, not ours. All of His plans, decided before we were born, will be brought to pass when we hear Him and obey. For He has said, through the prophet Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and give you a future.”

His plans–will be fulfilled–when we seek Him first–before doing anything, hear and obey. Whenever we’re not sure of what we should be doing, we need to ask Him. And we need not be afraid to approach Him boldly because He has given us permission to do so and when we do as He desires, He knows He can trust us to do what He wants us to do.

We serve an awesome God, who only wants the best for us and He’s waiting for us to turn to Him and trust Him, implicitly. Can we give Him His rightful place as Lord of our lives and trust Him to provide–not only everything we need, but also to give us the desires of our hearts when we please Him?

He’s waiting with open arms to receive us as His own. Why are waiting to give Him what is rightfully His–Lordship over our lives and praise for all He has done and will do?

If we have yet to make that decision–to give Him His rightful place–Lord of our lives, today is a good day to make that decision. Reading beyond the first verse of this chapter, we understand that even the destruction of lands who ignore Him or won’t obey Him is part of His plans for disobedience. Today is the day–don’t wait another moment–accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and know where you’ll spend eternity.

Message For The Times!

“But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” (Revelation 2:14-16 NLT)

The simple, but powerful message–used by John, the baptist (one who baptized, not the denomination), spoken to John, the Disciple whom Jesus loved, and should be used by Believers all over the land--REPENT!

We hear all sorts of “feel-good” messages from various preachers of The Word. We hear prosperity messages (which some have rejected), we hear messages for healing (always appropriate), we hear messages of deliverance (again, appropriate), we hear messages of forgiveness (we should forgive since we have been forgiven) and we hear messages about the power of prayer (there is power in prayer), but what we seldom hear is a message that deals with repentance–turning away from sin and turning to God–and this is why the world is in the shape it is.

John’s message before the appearance of Christ–REPENT and be baptized for the remission of sin.

God’s response to our needs–because He loves us so much–He came down from heaven, in the likeness of sinful flesh, tempted by all man could be tempted, and chose to be raised upon a cross for our sins though He never committed a sin.

Our response to God has been–negligible at best–we come to an altar, sorry for our sins (sorry we got caught), and ask Him to forgive us–and as soon as we get out of the church, away from the altar and those who were praying for us–turn back to our sinful lifestyles, like a dog returning to its own vomit–absolutely sickening.

The real problem is that not many–who are preaching–understand the need to teach REPENTANCE and what it really means. To repent is more than to say, “I’m sorry, Lord forgive me.” True repentance is an acknowledgment that we have sinned, we need Him in our lives to help us to remain sin-free, and give our lives over to Him to keep us from sin–turning completely to Him–away from sin.

When we say we allow Jesus to be our Lord and Savior–what we should mean (and some don’t know), is that we give Him complete control over what we do and say–we submit to His Lordship. Accepting the work on the cross is acceptance of His being our Savior–saving us from ourselves. This is the first step on the journey to living a life that glorifies God and puts us in position “to receive” all His many benefits--prosperity, longevity, good health, etc. REPENTANCE–comes first–then we receive the rewards from pleasing Him–not the other way around.

It is time for us–all of us–who believe and agree with God–to preach the message for this time–REPENT!

O Lord our God!

“O Lord our God, other lords have ruled over us, but Your Name alone, do we honor!” (Isaiah 26:13 paraphrased)

God is known by many names, but has had only one primary role in the lives of Believers–The creator of all things and without Him, nothing was created.

A lord–is a ruler over others, mandates what others may or may not do in order to keep peace and harmony in the midst of people. English Lords ruled over land and the people worked the land; usually for the benefit of all, but of course there were some greedy lords who only thought of themselves.

When settlers first came to what is now known as America, some of those same traditional thoughts presided in the minds of those who wanted to live like the very people from whom they had left in England–the lords who wanted to rule everyone else.

Think about this–we understand the lordship of people over other people, so why don’t we understand the Lordship of God over us who believe? Everything we have, we have because of Him; everything we are able to do (constructively and productively), we are able to do because of Him. But do we honor Him as Lord?

Today, let’s make a decision to honor The Lord, who is Lord over all and live like we love Him! Hallelujah!