With God We Shall Do Valiantly!

Reading:  Psalms 108 - 112
My Verse:  "With God we shall do valiantly;
                         it is He who will tread down our foes" (108:13).

My dictionary.com app states this about the word valiant.  "boldly courageous, brave, stouthearted, worthy, excellent."  What a most wonderful word!  It brings to mind those who do wonderfully heroic acts!  This verse tells me that "with God" I can and "shall do valiantly!"

The key to this verse is "with God."  I can not be valiant on my own.  David makes this very clear, LORD God,  in Psalms 109.

          "But you, O GOD my Lord,
                deal on  my behalf for your name's sake;
                because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!
            For I am poor and needy,
                and my heart is stricken within me.
            I am gone like a shadow at evening;
                 I am shaken off like a locust" (109:21-23).

But how, oh how, do I get there?  How does one become valiant, LORD God?  I know I need to do it through You.  I know that it is You that enables me to walk this path that You put me on.  But more often than not I just feel so timid and afraid.  I know that is not of You! (2 Timothy 1:7)

First, I know that I must be thankful to You for saving me, for counting me worthy.

"I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart" (Psalm 111:1).

Second, I know that I need to praise You, LORD God.

"Great are the works of the LORD.
     studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendor and majesty is His work,
     and his righteousness endures forever" (Psalm 111:2,3).

If I do these things, and hold onto You steadfastly You, LORD God will bring me along. You will even help me to be steadfast during those moments when I am too weak to hang on in my own power. Thank You for that!
 
"Praise the LORD!
 Blessed is the man who fears the LORD.
     who greatly delights in his commandments" (Psalm 112:1)!

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!

Need To Be Thankful

Reading Psalms 103 -107
My Verse:  "Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
                        for his steadfast love endures forever" (107:1)!

It is so much easier to complain, to see all that is wrong in one's life.  Oh, LORD God, I pray for help in this area.  I pray that You will help me to count my blessings!  Help me each day to start off thanking You for all that You have done for me and will do for me!

I heard a wonderful sermon on thankfulness some time ago.  I entered this note in the back of my Bible.  "A thankful heart is a guard against deception."  I believe this.  I was always so fearful of being deceived!  If I started to doubt I would remember this admonition and start recalling all that I had to thank You, LORD God for.  Thank you for that.  Thank You for that sermon and this reminder of how to guard against deception.

Being thankful keeps me from being overwhelmed by anxiety.  "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).  It is so wonderful how You take my eyes off myself, off my immediate problems and the anxiety lessens and melts away.

You, LORD God, tell us throughout Scripture to be thankful.

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (I Thessalonians 5:18).

"Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20).

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!  Give thanks to him; bless his name" (Psalm 100:4)!

You desire for me to be thankful to You for all things, at all times!   You desire this because You know that is what is best for me.  Being thankful makes me a better person!

It is pretty wonderful that we have a holiday - Thanksgiving.  It is a time when families gather together to remember and be thankful.  Yes, there are many things not right in our society today but we also have so very much to be thankful for!  I pray for the citizens of our country today to look at all that is good and to realize that all that is good is because of You!  That kind of focus changes us as a country!

How we need to daily pause in our very busy lives to meditate on what we have to be thankful for!  Help me do that today!

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!

Bless the LORD, Oh My Soul!

Reading:  Psalms 101 - 103
My Verse:  "Bless the LORD, O my soul,
                        and all that is within me,
                        bless his holy name" (Psalm 103:1)!

Oh, LORD God, sometimes it is just so good to praise You!  This morning I watched a wonderful video on youtube.com of troops exuberantly singing "There Is No God Like Jehovah!"  It is wonderful! So uplifting!  I do enjoy the song service at church.  I love singing Your praises.  I also find solace listening to hymns when I am feeling a bit out of sorts.  LORD God, it is good for my soul to bless You!  "Bless the LORD, O my soul!"

Yes, there is something pretty wonderful about  worship.  I love this quote.

     "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."  -William Temple


Richard J Foster says this of corporate worship or group worship.

     "To worship is to experience Reality, to touch life.  It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community.  It is a breaking into the Shekinah of God, or better yet, being invaded by the Shekinah of God."


Yesterday my verse was about Your goodness, LORD God.  Oh, how I need to dwell on that goodness!  My very being needs it!  That is what worship is - dwelling on You, melding for a very brief time my spirit with Yours!  Worship is a faint glimpse of what it is going to be like when we are in Your very presence!

Worship is not something "worked up."  It is not a ritual.  It must be real and genuine.  You, Jesus, tell us.  "The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him" (John 4:23).

Oh, LORD God, there is so much to worship and praise You for!
You . . .
           "forgive" all my iniquities
           "heal" me        
           "redeem" me from an empty life and the awful pit
           "crown" me with Your love and mercy
           "satisfiy" me with Your goodness
           "do not deal with me according to my sins"
           "as far as the east is from the west,
                   so far does He remove (my) transgressions from (me)" (Psalm 103:3-5,12).

Thank You, LORD God for David's psalms always reminding me of Your wonder and my need to praise and worship You!  Help me this day to - "Bless the LORD, Oh my soul!"

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!


   
   
     

God's Goodness Rings True!

Reading:  Psalms 95 - 100
My Verse:  "For the LORD is good;
                        his steadfast love endures forever,
                        and his faithfulness to all generations" (Psalm 100:5).


You alone are truly good, LORD God.  All that You created is good. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).  To behold Your handiwork is to behold all that is good - a starry night, fall leaves, a hillside filled with a riot of colorful wildflowers, a bird's song, a child's laughter.  All these wonderful things make one feel good.  They ring true because there is truth in them, truth and goodness!

"No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18).

"Thou are good and doest good" (Psalm 119:68).

"Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good" (Psalm 135:3).


You created us in Your image and so created us to be good. (Genesis 1:27)  When we walk in Your precepts we feel a rightness in all that we do even as we see so much that is wrong around us.  When we stay in Your word it is somehow reflected in our very countenance!  I once had an elder person comment on how I looked compared to another person much younger than myself.  He said I looked younger and happier!  I was rather amazed because I did not see that.  But it was a time when I was very much into Your Word LORD God!  This elder person perceived that!  He saw past me and saw only Your goodness shining through me!

When I do something wrong I feel it!  Suddenly things are not good!  I am out of sorts!  LORD God, thank You for that!  Thank You for  creating us in Your own image so that when we do wrong we immediately know it!  Instead of our world ringing true, everything starts to clang!  My conscience frets at me.  My very body becomes ill.  I become stressed!   One need only to go to the webmd.com site to see all the physical symptoms suffered by those in stress - stress caused by guilt.  We make ourselves miserable by trying to make ourselves happy through wrong behavior, behavior that  is selfish and against Your precepts LORD God!  David said it so incredibly well!

"For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
     through my groaning all day long.
 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
     my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer" (Psalm 32:3,4).

Thank You, LORD God that You do not let us get off so easily with sin. Thank You also for making it possible to be free of that guilt.  You only ask that we repent and You will forgive us and put aside the wrongs we did. (I John 1:9)  Admitting one is wrong can be hard but the relief it brings is so worth it!  Only through this can we again feel Your goodness.  Again David tells best of the wonderful relief and freedom when we seek and find forgiveness.

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
     whose sin is covered,
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
     and in whose spirit there is no deceit" (Psalm 32:1,2).

Thank You, LORD God, for Your goodness!  That sense of things in one's life "ringing true" is so very wonderful!

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!

Cares Of My Heart!

Reading:  Psalms 89 - 94
My Verse:    "When the cares of my heart are many,
                          your consolations cheer my soul" (Psalm 94:18,19).

The theme of my blog has been, LORD God, that You enrich me.  You, and You only can truly cheer my soul for You are the one that saves, the only one that can save! (John 14:6)
When the "cares of my heart" drag me down, You will lift me up into Your loving arms and carry me through!

Reading the Psalms has been a constant reminder of how we as humans cannot escape despondency, feeling low or being anxious about one thing or another.  A common saying, "There is always something"  refers to the constant fact of things going awry.  The truth is that we live in a fallen world.  Mankind is sinful - all humans commit sin! (Isaiah 53:6)  Sin, my own sin and that of others will cause distress.  It is how I deal with this distress that is important.

The cares of our heart can wear us down if we let them.  It is often too easy to let oneself dwell on those cares and worry over them.  I catch myself at that often.  I realize I need to stop it!  I need to look to You, LORD God and be reminded of all that You have saved me from.  Yes, I may be struggling with something but I am not to dwell on it and worry over it - it is a total waste of time.

You love me and care about my concerns.  You tell me to bring those concerns to You. (1 Peter 5:7)

We need only ask and You will keep us!
     "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings" (Psalm 17:8).

As a Christian, a follower of You, LORD God, You allow many things into my life to grow me, to teach me to draw nearer to You.  (James 1:1-13)

I love the image this verse gives me!
    " And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.(2 Corinthians 3:18).

Yes, I will have many cares while here on this earth!  But, You LORD God will, if I allow You, use those cares to enrich and transform me beyond what I can even imagine!  Thank You for helping me deal with the "cares of my heart."

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!