"Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples."
1 Chronicles 16:8
About 3 weeks ago I started to see again on Facebook a slew of people doing something that they are thankful for each day. We get to Thanksgiving and we seem to be reminded and remember our need to give thanks. We have praise services designed to give opportunity for giving thanks and we think about our thankfulness a lot more often.
I have found in my life however that if I truly evaluate my thanksgiving it sounds more like an expectation than it does genuine gratitude. If we leave the command as simply give thanks, we say, "Thank you." and seem to be done with our requirement. Which is why I love this verse. IN 1 Chronicles there is this glorious moment where the ark has been returned to Israel and David is making plans for it to be in Jerusalem. He builds it a temporary home and begins a psalm of praise that is related in content to Psalm 105. This is the first verse of that psalm in verse 8 and it contains more than just the command to give thanks. In fact, it is three commands that I believe are related.
1. Give thanks
2. Call upon His name
3. Make known His deeds among the peoples.
We are certainly to give thanks to God for all that He does on our behalf, but we have two other responsibilities along with it.
Call upon His name - this has the idea behind it of trust and reliance upon God. It has the idea of devotion to God. It carries the weight of our relationship with God and the realization that we are to place all of our lives into His capable hands.
Make His name known - this means that we are designed to tell others about all that God has done for us. And the target of this, the peoples, means that for Israel they were to tell non-Israelites about the good things that God has done. For us, this means that we are to use the things for which we are thankful as means of witness in the world around us. We are to give glory to God. So by all means, say what you are thankful for on Facebook, and then go out and trust God more, share God more with those around you. And in so doing you will demonstrate true gratitude!
Monday, November 13, 2017
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Psalm 119
This passage is the longest chapter of the Bible and I think that most people who are doing a "Read through the Bible in a year" program dread the day that they have to read through this long chapter. However, there are a few things that you should know about this chapter of Scripture that perhaps will give you a greater appreciation for it. For starters, did you know that it was a love poem?
Psalm 119 is a love poem for the Word of God. In fact, the psalmist mentions the Word of God in some way shape or form in every single verse. That's right, every verse mentions the speech of God. It uses many words, words, statutes, laws, commands, etc. but all of them refer to the same thing, what God has said to us. And the psalmist mentions it a lot!
Did you know that Psalm 119 is an acrostic. For those not familiar with poetry an acrostic is a poem where successive lines or groups of lines start with letters that spell something out. In this case the poem spells out the entire Hebrew Alphabet. And not only does he come up with one thing to say for each letter, but the psalm is broken down into groups of eight. He says eight things about the Word of God that start with the first letter (Aleph). And then he says eight things that start with the second letter. (Beth) And then the third. And the fourth. And so on all the way through the Hebrew Alphabet.
I want to pause and ask how well we could do this in our language. Find eight ways to say coherent sentences that accurately describe your love for God's Word. Now find eight ways to say them that start with the letter A. Now jump to Z and have some fun!
The point of all of this is to drive us to a deep understanding of how much the author loves the words of his God. And that leads me to a question. Do you love the Word of God? Is it precious to you? Do you care enough to express your love for it and all the benefits that it gives you? Perhaps we could learn a lot from Psalm 119!
Psalm 119 is a love poem for the Word of God. In fact, the psalmist mentions the Word of God in some way shape or form in every single verse. That's right, every verse mentions the speech of God. It uses many words, words, statutes, laws, commands, etc. but all of them refer to the same thing, what God has said to us. And the psalmist mentions it a lot!
Did you know that Psalm 119 is an acrostic. For those not familiar with poetry an acrostic is a poem where successive lines or groups of lines start with letters that spell something out. In this case the poem spells out the entire Hebrew Alphabet. And not only does he come up with one thing to say for each letter, but the psalm is broken down into groups of eight. He says eight things about the Word of God that start with the first letter (Aleph). And then he says eight things that start with the second letter. (Beth) And then the third. And the fourth. And so on all the way through the Hebrew Alphabet.
I want to pause and ask how well we could do this in our language. Find eight ways to say coherent sentences that accurately describe your love for God's Word. Now find eight ways to say them that start with the letter A. Now jump to Z and have some fun!
The point of all of this is to drive us to a deep understanding of how much the author loves the words of his God. And that leads me to a question. Do you love the Word of God? Is it precious to you? Do you care enough to express your love for it and all the benefits that it gives you? Perhaps we could learn a lot from Psalm 119!
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