Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.”
– Psalm 104:33

Many things change as we pass through the seasons of life. Schools and jobs come and go. Health waxes and wanes. Responsibilities, pressures, and stresses rise and fall. Households grow and shrink. Fads, fashions, movements, and technologies shift like the wind. Passions rise and fall. One thing, however, should remain constant – your praise for the Lord!

The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His love, faithfulness, grace, and mercy toward you don’t shift like wind or rise and fall like the tide. May your praise for Him be similarly steady. May your worship remain fully committed all the days of your life. You will never retire from praising and worshiping the Lord. Ever!

For followers of Jesus, praise is a major part of what we’ll be doing for all eternity. If the Lord Jesus is your Savior, then you will be delighted to praise Him in His presence for all eternity. So, don’t take a break from praise and worship here on earth. Even as your body changes, praise the Lord. Even as the seasons of life and health turn and shift, praise the Lord. Even as earthly fortunes rise and fall, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, whether you love your current season or loathe it. Praise the Lord and #FollowJesus

“And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.” – Ezekiel 47:9

God gave Ezekiel a vision of His power to restore life to even the deadest of things. He showed him the river of life, flowing from His temple down to what we call the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea lies amidst the devastated ruins of the region that used to be Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s so salty that absolutely nothing can live in it. Nonetheless, God promises Ezekiel that He can bring vibrant new life and flourishing to something as dead and hostile to life as that.

This is what Jesus does to people. When He promises fountains of “living water” springing up in everyone who believes in Him, this is what He accomplishes in them (and in you). Jesus, the Living Water, raises the deadest of souls to new spiritual life through faith in Him. God’s grace brings abundant, vibrant, joyous life to the darkest, deadest, soul. There is no person so far gone that he or she can’t be made new in Christ Jesus! Why? Because their salvation and restoration to life is never based on who they are or what they’ve done. It’s always entirely based on Who Jesus is and what He did on the cross!

Never give up on someone who seems hopelessly hardened against the Lord. Pray, and keep on praying. Show them Christ, tell them about Christ, love them like Christ. Trust that in the Lord’s perfect timing, living water may yet bring healing and life to their soul. #FollowJesus

“Oh 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,
and his hands formed the dry land.”
– Psalm 95:1-5

The psalmist says it perfectly! It’s always the right time to worship the Lord. Whether you’re by yourself in your home, sitting in a car, bus, or airplane, at school, at work, or gathered with others. God spoke the universe into existence. He formed all things by His will. He holds all of creation in His hand. He knows all things, sees all things, and is sovereign over everything. He deserves all praise, honor, and glory.

So give that to Him! Worship the Lord. Yes, right now! As His beloved creation, the proper response to these glorious realities is to worship Him. To praise Him in word and song. To submit to His will and commands. To tell others about Him. Don’t just worship from time to time. Live a life of worship because God is worthy of worship in all ways and at all times. #FollowJesus

“And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” – Philippians 3:9

What Paul writes about here is the only true righteousness available to anyone. The righteousness that comes from God. If you’re a follower of Jesus, having placed your faith in Him as your Lord and Savior, then this is YOUR righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ that’s credited to you purely as a gift of God’s grace.

You have no other righteousness. Not righteousness because of good works or generous giving. Not righteousness because of high moral standards and ironclad self-discipline. Not righteousness earned through following all the rules. Not self-righteousness. All those other kinds of “righteousness” are like garbage in the sight of the pure, holy, perfectly righteous God of the Universe. They aren’t righteous and they can’t help anyone one bit in the eyes of the Lord.

So take time to really let this truth soak in. Embrace Christ’s righteousness in you. Reminder yourself that God doesn’t accept you because you’ve cleaned up your act and made yourself righteous. Rather, God loves and accepts you because the righteousness of His Son is given to everyone who entrusts their life to Him. That’s the only source of true righteousness and it’s more than enough for everyone who will accept it! #FollowJesus