O Come All Ye Faithful (Hymn)

O Come All Ye Faithful
John Wade (1743)

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels;

Refrain
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation;
O sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

Refrain

Yea, Lord we greet Thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus, to Thee be all glory given;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.

Refrain

“Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.”  That phrase basically sums up the entire Christmas story.  God Himself came down to earth.  God became a man and took on flesh.  It truly is an amazing story and one worthy of celebration!  This year, maybe we should try to focus on the Saviour and all He has done for us for the entire Christmas season!

Psalm Saturday (7c)

O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.  O LORD my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; ; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy: )  Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust.  Selah.

Psalm 7:1-5

In the first two verses of this Psalm, the Psalmist tells us that he is putting his trust in the Lord and gives us the reasons for that decision.  He understands that there are those who are out to destroy his life and destroy his soul.  He understands that God alone can help and deliver him.  Then in the next few verses, he prays a powerful prayer that we would likely hesitate to pray ourselves.

“O Lord my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me… Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust.  Selah.

That is a powerful prayer and, honestly, I don’t know that I could or would pray it.  I know that there is iniquity in my hands.  I am a sinner.  I know that I have done wrong to people.  I know that I have done wrong.  I am thankful for the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus, and that I do not have to pray a prayer like this!

Being Thankful, Pt. 5

For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psalm 6:5

Here in the United States, we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday.  People took a day (or at least part of a day) and were generally thankful.  As Christians, we know that we should be thankful all of the time for every thing – not just for one day out of the year.

This verse asks an interesting question: “in the grave who shall give thee thanks?”

The need for us to be thankful is an urgent need.  We need to be thankful now, not some day in the future when we have everything we want and everything is going well.  The reason we need to be thankful now is simple: we only have a limited amount of time in which to be thankful.  We only have a limited amount of time in which to express our thanks to the Lord for all that He has done for us and given us.

Once our life is over, we can no longer thank and praise Him.  (at least not here on Earth)  Our opportunity to thank Him – especially our opportunity to thank Him in front of others, is a “limited time opportunity.”  It will not last forever.

We need to be thankful while we have the chance to be thankful.  There is coming a day when that chance will be over.  As we look forward to 364 days before the next “Thanksgiving” holiday, we need to remember to be thankful every single one of those 364 days.

Are we thankful today?  Do the people around us – our family, our friends, our coworkers, and our neighbours – know that we are thankful?  As Christians, the answer to both of those questions should always be “yes!”

Being Thankful, Pt. 4

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

I Thessalonians 5:18

On this day, which is the day we celebrate Thanksgiving (in the United States, at least), we will look at what is probably the most famous verse in the Bible about being thankful.

“In every thing give things: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

It is easy to be thankful on a day like today.  Many of us are surrounded by family and/or friends.  Many of us have tables full of food ready to be eaten in our comfortable homes.  We truly have much to be thankful for.  Even people who do not know the Lord will be thankful today.

But this verse would have us take our thankfulness to the next level.  It tells us “in every thing give thanks.”  That is a little more difficult than thanking the Lord for your family and the big turkey dinner you’re about to eat.  That includes thanking the Lord for things that we may not understand.  That includes thanking the Lord for things that we may not like or want in our lives.

The rest of the verse gives us the reason that we should give thanks in “every thing.”  “…for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  We can be thankful for every thing because we understand that God knows best.  We understand that, whatever may happen, it is from God and it is for a reason.  And that is definitely something for which we can be thankful all of the time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Being Thankful, Pt. 3

Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.  For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Isaiah 51:3

This is not a passage that people look at when looking at “thanksgiving” passages.  It is in the book of Isaiah and it is a prophetic passage dealing with the future when the Lord comes to restore and rule His people.  It speaks of a glorious future time in history, when everything is good and pleasant.  I would like to look at the description of this perfect time and place: “…he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.”  Right in the middle of this wonderful description we find that there will be “thanksgiving.”

We might tend to think “of course there will be thanksgiving then and there – the Lord Himself will be ruling and all will be good.”  But has He not promised us all of that and more?  Is He not ruling in our hearts and lives even today?  Why should we not be thankful?

Too often, we get our minds focused on what we don’t have or what is going wrong in our lives.  We need to focus instead on all that He has given us and promised us.  We need to submit to Him and His will and be thankful that He knows the way and has promised to lead and guide us.  Everywhere God is in the Bible, we find thankfulness.  Can we find it in our lives today?

Being Thankful, Pt. 2

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Romans 1:20-21

This is Thanksgiving week, and so we are looking at some verses dealing with thankfulness and thanksgiving.  These verses give us some insight on what happens to a person (or a nation) who becomes unthankful.

The end of Romans chapter one is filled with the depravity of man.  It is filled with the things that man without God is capable of and will do, when given the opportunity.  The list given is one of heinous sins and pure evil.  But all of that sin and depravity starts here in verse 21: “…when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.”

When a person knows God and refuses to glorify Him, they become unthankful.  When we start looking at ourselves as the source of the blessings in our lives, we lose our thankfulness to God.  And when we lose our thankfulness, we start to elevate ourselves above God.  And doing that will lead to just about every sin imaginable.

We need to be thankful.  Not being thankful is a sin.  We may not look at it like a “big sin,” but it is a terrible sin that will soon lead to other “worse” sins.  God says at the end of this verse that “their foolish heart was darkened.”  That will be our fate if we refuse to be thankful for what the Lord has given us, and none of us want that!

Being Thankful, Pt. 1

I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people.

Psalm 35:18

During this “Thanksgiving week,” we will look at some different aspects of thankfulness that will hopefully help us to be more thankful.  Sadly, thankfulness seems to be dying trait in our modern world, but we as Christians should always be thankful.  We have no excuse after all the Lord has given us to be thankful for.

In this verse the Psalmist identifies two different places he is going to “give thanks” to the Lord.  The first place is “in the great congregation.”  The second is “among much people.”

It is a fine and good think to thank the Lord while we are praying.  It is right and proper to thank Him for His daily mercies when we lay our heads on our pillows at night.  Silently bowing our heads and thanking Him for His provision before we eat our meals is wonderful.  But we should also, like the Psalmist in this verse, praise and thank Him in front of others.

Our families and friends should know that we are thankful to the Lord.  Our co-workers and the members of our church should know that we are thankful to the Lord.  We should thank and praise Him everywhere we find an opportunity.

When we hear someone else thanking the Lord, it helps us to look at ourselves and be thankful for what He has done for us.  Thankfulness begets more thankfulness.  If you start with one person being truly thankful and expressing it, you soon end up with many people being thankful and expressing it.  And that creates a whole “spirit” of thankfulness, which leads to a host of other blessing!

We know that being thankful in our hearts is the main thing, but we also need to let that thankfulness come out of our mouths!  How are we doing today?

Joy to the World (Hymn)

Joy to the World
Isaac Watts (1719)

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

It’s getting closer to Christmas (my favorite season of the year!) so I thought we would start looking at some Christmas hymns today!  To me, this is one of the most encouraging of the Christmas hymns.  Doctrinally, I believe that it is dealing more with Christ’s second coming and His millennial reign than with His first coming and Christmas, but it is a great hymn nevertheless.  He does bring joy to the world, and He is the only One Who brings joy to the world!

 

Psalm Saturday (7b)

O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.  O LORD my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; ; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy: )  Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust.  Selah.

Psalm 7:1-5

In the first verse of this Psalm, the Psalmist reminds us that he is putting his trust in the Lord.  He then asks the Lord to reward his faith and save him from all them that persecute him.  The Psalmist understood what is at stake in this battle.  We need to be sure that we understand it too.

“…Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.”  The Psalmist understood that, if the Lord does not save him and deliver him, there will be no one who can help him.  If the Lord doesn’t help him, there will be no help.  Without the Lord, his life is going to be destroyed.  The same is true for us.  Without the help of the Lord, our lives are going to be wrecked and annihilated.  Stronger people than us have had their lives destroyed because they did not put their trust in the Lord.

Who are we trusting in today?  Is our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ or is it in ourselves?  The answer to that question is vital.  The right answer can help and deliver us; the wrong answer can destroy us.

The Crossroads of Faith and Wisdom

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

I Corinthians 1:21-24

The preaching of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for our sins was, to the Jews, a stumblingblock, and, to the Greeks, foolishness.  Both groups just couldn’t accept it, but for different reasons.

The Jews lacked faith.  They wanted a sign.  They couldn’t accept His Word.  They couldn’t accept the preaching of the cross of Christ.  They wanted to see something with their own eyes and handle it with their own hands.  They wanted God to send down fire from Heaven or something.  They stumbled at the idea of accepting Christ by faith.

The Greeks, on the other hand, were obsessed with obtaining wisdom.  They were always looking for something new.  To them, the preaching of the cross and the very idea of Jesus Christ dying on a cross for their sins was foolishness.  There wasn’t enough “wisdom” in it.  They expected something far more complex and mentally demanding.  But, in their search for great wisdom, they walked right past the simple wisdom of the gospel.

Those two groups of people missed the Saviour.  But He is there – right at the crossroads of faith and wisdom.  We need to have faith to believe in Him Whom we have not seen, and we need wisdom to understand who He is and what we are.  When those things come together, we see our need of Him, and we put our faith in Him.  And that is a beautiful thing!