Praise God for His Deliverance (Psalm 9).

* The Psalmist worships the Lord (Psalm 9:1-2).

* He does not speak proud words. He sees all things in the light of the holy God (Psalm 9:3-8).

* At the heart of this Psalm, there is a declaration of the character of God (Psalm 9:7-8).

* The majesty, righteousness and judgment of God - Have we lost these important aspects of God's character? Have we turned God into a sentimentalized 'god' of our own making? Let's not take God for granted. Let God be God. This is very different from insisting that God must be what we think He should be.

* We read about God's trustworthiness (Psalm 9:9-10).

* We praise God. We make it known that He is to be praised (Psalm 9:11-12).

* In our worship, we speak of God's judgment as well as His salvation. (Psalm 9:12).

* In our worship, we look to the Lord for mercy and, with joy, we praise Him for His salvation (Psalm 9:13-14).

* As well as emphasizing that God is trustworthy, we must also emphasize that He is not to be taken for granted by proud unbelief (Psalm 9:15-16).

* We must take seriously the radical contrast between the "wicked" and the "needy" (Psalm 9:17-18). Who are the "needy"? - Here, God's Word is speaking to us of the godly who recognize their spiritual need of the Lord's saving grace. By contrasting the "wicked" and the "needy", God is calling us to come to Him, in our need, and receive, from Him, his salvation.

* There are two prayers which we must pray. - We must ask that God will make it known that He is Lord (Psalm 9:19). We must ask that we will recognize that we are "but men" (Psalm 9:20). When we recognize that God is God and we are but men, we are ready to be led to the Cross where we learn of both God's hatred of sin and God's love for the sinner. Thus, we come to the point where we are able to share, with the Psalmist, in worshipping the Lord (Psalm 9:1-2). We worship God as those who have come to trust in Him as the God of our salvation (Psalm 9:9-10).

* Trusting in the Lord, the God of our salvation, our worship is heartfelt worship (Psalm 9:1). Trusting in the Lord, the God of our salvation, our worship is joyful worship (Psalm 9:2).

Lord, the return of Your blessing comes with a real confession of our sin.

Ezra 9:1-10:44 Lord, the return of Your blessing comes with a real confession of our sin - "Our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens" (Ezra 9:6), You don't bless us because we deserve to be blessed. You bless us because You love us. This is where Your blessing comes from. It comes from Your love. Despite all of our sin, You encourage us to believe that You may yet "grant us some reviving to set up the House of our God" (Ezra 9:8-9).

Lord, we thank You for Your Word.

Numbers 2:1-34 Lord, we thank You for Your Word. You have spoken to us. You are still speaking to us. It's Your Word that leads us on into Your future. Help us to listen to what You are saying to us, to build our lives on Your Word, to let Your Word flow out from us, to bring blessing to many.

Lord, help us never to think, "We are blessed because we are obedient."

Leviticus 26:1-46 Lord, help us never to think, "We are blessed because we are obedient." Help us always to say, "We are blessed because You love us and Jesus died for us." Your love for us, Jesus' death for us: This is where the blessing comes from - and it's where our obedience comes from! We think of Your great love for us. We think of Jesus, crucified for us. We say, "Lord, You love me. Help me to love You." We say, "Jesus, You died for me. Help me to live for You." This is how Your blessing comes to us - You show us how much You love us, You put Your love into our hearts, the obedience grows stronger - and so does the blessing!

Revised Common Lectionary

Search This Blog