Psalm 97:12 Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
Oh Friends, oh Friends, our God is a most wonderful God! He’s exceedingly good too! Glory Hallelujah! Please don’t ever doubt that. Remember yesterday I mentioned a couple situations in my life that I couldn’t solve and finally surrendered them to Him? Well mih people, lo and behold, another piece of the puzzle was slotted in today, through His great mercy, and with perfect timing too. As if I expected anything different eh? (smile) And the beauty of it is that it came from a totally unexpected source. Not by His might or power, but by His awesome Spirit, He turned a situation that once looked hopeless, into one that’s filled with promise. And I thank Him most sincerely for that victory! But Friends, it might never have happened if I hadn’t admitted my inability to solve the problem and left it completely in His hands. It’s certainly an occasion for rejoicing and giving thanks. As the Psalmist joyfully declares; ‘Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.’ Ah Friends, how can I not be grateful and give thanks and praise His Holy name after He’s been so good to me eh? But that is what’s wrong with many of us my people; we get good tidings and breaks through the Lord’s incredible workings, but we’re not thankful or grateful. We just say chuh, and shrug it off, like we’re entitled to it. But when the shoe’s on the other foot, when the bucket bottom drop out and we don’t know our A from our E, we quick to run and bawl; ‘Oh God, help me nuh!’ And from the eternal wellspring of His LOVING kindness, He usually does. But when things settle down, we forget about Him and revert to our own way, until the mark burst on us again. Oh my people, it’s at crucial times like these, when everything is topsy-turvy, unsettled and confused that we need to stop and seriously look deep inside ourselves, consider our ways, do some intensive soul searching, find out where and why we’re not obeying the Lord’s dictates, stop fooling ourselves and truly admit our shortcomings, to us, and to our God. Wow! A real Bruh Paulian sentence! Like machines, we too need periodic maintenance. Every so often we need to take inventory of ourselves, especially our spiritual selves. One of the major shortcomings of our world today is that not enough people accentuate their spirituality, don’t place enough emphasis on it. We ought to give it a rather high priority in our lives, especially we believers, who claim to be spiritual beings merely existing in a physical body. In light of that, it’s essential to understand who we are in a spiritual sense, and how far along the spiritual continuum we are, for Christians can never stop learning, growing and expanding their sense of spiritual wonder and excitement. Yes friends, excitement and wonder are two essential aspects of Christian living. To be truly alive, we need to be excited about Christ: about all that He’s done for us, and promised to do, also be amazed and wonder at all the marvellous, seemingly impossible things our God has done in creating this beautiful world and maintaining it successfully for so long. As a quote from one Bernard. S. Raskas states: ‘Develop an expanding sense of wonder at the world, at yourself, at God. The world will never starve for wonders – only for the want of wonder.’ And that’s so very true my people. Wonders are constantly happening in our world, it’s just that we don’t take time to appreciate them; we don’t stop often or long enough to smell the roses. And contrary to what some might think, appreciating the wonders of our world is a part of being thankful and reverent to our God, who created them all. That’s why the Psalmist advises us to, ‘Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.’ (Ps.33:1) Oh Friends, how can we claim to be followers of Jesus and don’t have that brilliant flame burning in us eh? That flame that just makes us always want to do His bidding and constantly sing His praises, while eliciting tremendous joy and thankfulness in our hearts, minds and souls! My people, we need to develop that burning desire to please, worship, praise, thank and enjoy our God. That’s what life is all about: living for Jesus! And just being mediocre, luke warm or moderately enthusiastic is unacceptable. It won’t win any souls for Christ. What wins souls is enthusiasm laced with truth of the Word and a lifestyle to match! Look around and you’ll notice that all Lucifer’s devotees are go-getters. They don’t sit around and wait for things to happen, or come to them; they make things happen, though they be evil. We also need to be go-getters for Christ, and that only comes from an unfailing belief and trust in His purpose, His promises and His sincerity. That’s why men of great faith were always joyful and zealous. They had such a great LOVE for God that it made them want to sing and dance, give praise and thanks. As Bruh David says: ‘I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me…Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.’ (Ps.30:1,4) And we must mention that man of unquenchable faith and zeal, Bruh Paul. ‘Rejoice’ was one of his favourite words. ‘Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.’ (Phil.3:1) ‘But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly…’ (Phil.4:10) And his most famous bit of rejoicing advice: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.’ (Phil.4:4) My Friends, that’s the lesson for the day. And yuh know what? It’s so nice, we’ll say it twice. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.’ Much LOVE my brethren!…today’s mantra…rejoice always…rejoice always…rejoice always in the Lord…
Oh Friends, oh Friends, our God is a most wonderful God! He’s exceedingly good too! Glory Hallelujah! Please don’t ever doubt that. Remember yesterday I mentioned a couple situations in my life that I couldn’t solve and finally surrendered them to Him? Well mih people, lo and behold, another piece of the puzzle was slotted in today, through His great mercy, and with perfect timing too. As if I expected anything different eh? (smile) And the beauty of it is that it came from a totally unexpected source. Not by His might or power, but by His awesome Spirit, He turned a situation that once looked hopeless, into one that’s filled with promise. And I thank Him most sincerely for that victory! But Friends, it might never have happened if I hadn’t admitted my inability to solve the problem and left it completely in His hands. It’s certainly an occasion for rejoicing and giving thanks. As the Psalmist joyfully declares; ‘Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.’ Ah Friends, how can I not be grateful and give thanks and praise His Holy name after He’s been so good to me eh? But that is what’s wrong with many of us my people; we get good tidings and breaks through the Lord’s incredible workings, but we’re not thankful or grateful. We just say chuh, and shrug it off, like we’re entitled to it. But when the shoe’s on the other foot, when the bucket bottom drop out and we don’t know our A from our E, we quick to run and bawl; ‘Oh God, help me nuh!’ And from the eternal wellspring of His LOVING kindness, He usually does. But when things settle down, we forget about Him and revert to our own way, until the mark burst on us again. Oh my people, it’s at crucial times like these, when everything is topsy-turvy, unsettled and confused that we need to stop and seriously look deep inside ourselves, consider our ways, do some intensive soul searching, find out where and why we’re not obeying the Lord’s dictates, stop fooling ourselves and truly admit our shortcomings, to us, and to our God. Wow! A real Bruh Paulian sentence! Like machines, we too need periodic maintenance. Every so often we need to take inventory of ourselves, especially our spiritual selves. One of the major shortcomings of our world today is that not enough people accentuate their spirituality, don’t place enough emphasis on it. We ought to give it a rather high priority in our lives, especially we believers, who claim to be spiritual beings merely existing in a physical body. In light of that, it’s essential to understand who we are in a spiritual sense, and how far along the spiritual continuum we are, for Christians can never stop learning, growing and expanding their sense of spiritual wonder and excitement. Yes friends, excitement and wonder are two essential aspects of Christian living. To be truly alive, we need to be excited about Christ: about all that He’s done for us, and promised to do, also be amazed and wonder at all the marvellous, seemingly impossible things our God has done in creating this beautiful world and maintaining it successfully for so long. As a quote from one Bernard. S. Raskas states: ‘Develop an expanding sense of wonder at the world, at yourself, at God. The world will never starve for wonders – only for the want of wonder.’ And that’s so very true my people. Wonders are constantly happening in our world, it’s just that we don’t take time to appreciate them; we don’t stop often or long enough to smell the roses. And contrary to what some might think, appreciating the wonders of our world is a part of being thankful and reverent to our God, who created them all. That’s why the Psalmist advises us to, ‘Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.’ (Ps.33:1) Oh Friends, how can we claim to be followers of Jesus and don’t have that brilliant flame burning in us eh? That flame that just makes us always want to do His bidding and constantly sing His praises, while eliciting tremendous joy and thankfulness in our hearts, minds and souls! My people, we need to develop that burning desire to please, worship, praise, thank and enjoy our God. That’s what life is all about: living for Jesus! And just being mediocre, luke warm or moderately enthusiastic is unacceptable. It won’t win any souls for Christ. What wins souls is enthusiasm laced with truth of the Word and a lifestyle to match! Look around and you’ll notice that all Lucifer’s devotees are go-getters. They don’t sit around and wait for things to happen, or come to them; they make things happen, though they be evil. We also need to be go-getters for Christ, and that only comes from an unfailing belief and trust in His purpose, His promises and His sincerity. That’s why men of great faith were always joyful and zealous. They had such a great LOVE for God that it made them want to sing and dance, give praise and thanks. As Bruh David says: ‘I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me…Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.’ (Ps.30:1,4) And we must mention that man of unquenchable faith and zeal, Bruh Paul. ‘Rejoice’ was one of his favourite words. ‘Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.’ (Phil.3:1) ‘But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly…’ (Phil.4:10) And his most famous bit of rejoicing advice: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.’ (Phil.4:4) My Friends, that’s the lesson for the day. And yuh know what? It’s so nice, we’ll say it twice. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.’ Much LOVE my brethren!…today’s mantra…rejoice always…rejoice always…rejoice always in the Lord…
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