“Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; tell of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy Name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His presence continually!” Psalm 105:1-4
Devotional Thought For The Day
Those who know and believe the love that God has for us, what He has done for us in Christ Jesus [His most wondrous work], are eager to thank Him, call upon His Name, tell others of His gifts of forgiveness and salvation, to sing to Him, to praise Him, to glory in His holy Name, to seek Him, to rejoice in Him, and to seek His presence continually. This sounds like a full time job, but it is rather a way of life that fits into everything else that we do. We rise in the morning doing these things – while we wake up, make coffee, shave, shower, brush teeth, and get dressed for work. We do this during our commute, and during our working hours. We do this at meal times. We remember His love and care for us as we prepare for leisure and recreation, and during these enjoyable and restful times. How can we not when we know the greatness of His love for us, His promises regarding all aspects of our time, our being, and our welfare? Of course we seek His presence for this is our safety, our meaning, and our eternal blessedness!
Unbelievers consider this a bunch of nonsense and an utterly ridiculous waste of time and mental energy. Perhaps they consider this nothing more that mental “multitasking,” and believe there are more productive things to spend our energies on. They don’t realize that all of this doesn’t drain even a small calorie of mental or spiritual energy, but rather fills us with “His strength,” with much greater energy and zeal for life and its activities. It also prepares us to meet challenges with greater courage, confidence, and commitment. It also makes us far more resilient when facing troubles and tribulations. Believers understand that there is no meaningful and significant life apart from our great Creator, Savior, and Benefactor. We have hitched our wagons, our temporal and eternal fortunes, to the LORD, to the only True and Living God Who is love, and Who is also almighty and all-powerful, Who is the ultimate and final authority of the cosmos. So our relationship with Him, a close and intimate sharing of all of our life with Him, is our greatest joy and delight, and a huge source of strength!
We grow tired of speaking of the Lord and His wondrous love and marvelous works of salvation to those who are seemingly incorrigibly stuck in unbelief and rejection of God. We can understand how a case can be made against reverence for God, against faith in Jesus, against the dynamics of salvation by God’s grace alone through faith. Perhaps we tend to grant too much weight to these arguments which afflict and assault our faith in God and commitment to Him. But regardless of the various arguments set forth against God, they are all a contradiction of what can be seen every day and what every human being experiences. We know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and regardless of how we rationalize all of these sins we have a sense of our need for Divine forgiveness and clemency – or else judgment impends upon us. Ultimately, all such unbelieving arguments have to deny any distinction between good and evil, between God and the forces of evil which are prevalent each day in human behavior. The evidence is there, the “proof,” however we know how vigorously people can argue against plain facts and reality – but this hardly changes the reality; God alone is able to create and establish what is real by His mere Word, not any mere human being!
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” [Rom. 10:17] So, faith does not come by argument or by means of a person’s intellect. Intellectual obstacles can be chiseled and destroyed by rational argument but as we’ve all experienced, this alone does not guarantee a person coming to faith and salvation. But our speaking in praise of God, our witness to His wondrous love, and also the example of the power of God’s love within us as evidenced by how we live – by these things and through them God may be able to create faith and new life in others. So our great blessedness in living each day in the knowledge of God’s love, in deference to His goodness and glory, and in His strength, is quite important – not only to us, but also to others. So let us join the psalmist in his way of life. The rest of this psalm is a meditation on the great works of God’s deliverance and salvation – as revealed in the exodus of God’s children from Egypt. This wondrous work of God’s love is repeated in the life of every believer, so we delight to spend time recalling and meditating on “His wondrous works.” As we rest today in celebration of “labor,” we celebrate even more the “rest” God has given us in Christ Jesus!
Prayer For The Day
Dear Lord Jesus, Your works are truly wondrous and marvelous, filled with love, goodness, care, protection, and strength for Your people of faith. Draw us into Your joy by strengthening our faith in Your love. Grant us the joy of meditating upon Your love at all times. In this way we will be filled with praise and thanks to You, and will eagerly abide in Your presence, and will be infused with Your love and power. Grant us such blessings each day that we be living witnesses to Your goodness, love, and power. Amen.