Thanks and Worship

Because we are people with needs and desires, we need to be intentional to express thankfulness to God.  If we are primarily focused on what we lack, we might not consider how God has always been faithful to meet our needs--regardless how we feel at the moment.  When we focus on what others have and we do not have, we can become bitter and without gratitude for all God has done for us.  Should we focus on what we have, we are easily lifted up with pride when our possessions exceed others or we can feel down when we have little by comparison.

I was reading through ministry material today that reminded me how thankfulness is worship.  When we worship God, freely giving Him the honour and glory He is due, it works to humble our hearts before God.  Those who humble themselves with thanksgiving and gratitude to God are those He will lift up.  We do not express gratitude to God with the aim to gain but with contentment and joy for who He is, all He has done and given us according to the riches of His grace.  What do we have that we did not first receive? (1 Corinthians 4:7)  How good it is for us give God the praise and thanks He is due!  In exalting the almighty God, we are encouraged in faith.  By proclaiming publicly what God has done for us privately, we delight to make Jesus our boast.

Psalm 100:4-5 exhorts God's people, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. ⁵ For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations."  To know God by entering the Door--by grace through faith in Jesus--means to enter His kingdom and to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace, very sweet fruit indeed!  We have been thankful to people for kindness shown to us:  hasn't God's goodness and kindness to us been infinitely greater?  Shouldn't we thank God and bless His name because He is always good?  All the resources on this planet are limited and soon gone, yet God's mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.

Psalm 95:6 says, "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker."  How blessed we are to be called and chosen as children of God, the people of His pasture.  Our awesome God is good, and we ought to express our eternal gratitude every day.  As we bow our knees before our LORD God in adoration, may we thank Him with our lips from the heart.

Hearing and Doing

Have you ever given thought to what it would have been like to have lived during the season Jesus walked through Jerusalem and Israel with His disciples?  They were blessed to have heard Him teach, see the miracles He performed and know He was the promised Messiah and Son of God.  It would have been interesting for Joseph and Mary to have Jesus grow up as their son, and for your older brother to be the anointed One of God and to hear Him speak of repentance for sin and the kingdom of God.

After Jesus cast out a demon and gave insight concerning the spiritual realm as God who knows all things, Luke 11:27-28 says:  "And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!" ²⁸ But He said, "More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"  Mary was blessed to be the mother of Jesus, for the angel Gabriel and her cousin Elisabeth said this before she gave birth (Luke 1:28 & 42).  Mary was blessed to bond with Jesus as His mother and see Him grow into a man, but Jesus said there was a greater blessing for anyone who heard the word of God and kept it.  Some would be content to merely identify with Jesus as a mother or brother, yet there is a more blessed relationship possible today with Jesus Christ by faith and obedience today.

This statement by Jesus that emphasised the blessed relationship people can have with Him followed on from a circumstance that occurred a couple chapters earlier.  After Jesus explained the Parable of the Sower to a great gathering, Luke 8:19-21 says:  "Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd. ²⁰ And it was told Him by some, who said, "Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You." ²¹ But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."  Even as the seed that fell on good ground would sprout and bear much fruit, so those who hear the word of God will demonstrate having heard and believed God by obedience.  Their loyalties and convictions would be outwardly plain.  Jesus taught all who hear the word of God and keep it have a closer relationship to Him than His mother or brother related by blood.

A blessed relationship with God is freely offered by Jesus Christ who shed His blood to redeem sinners and adopt us into His own everlasting kingdom as beloved children.  Rather than wishing we could have been in Jesus' inner circle, by faith in Him we are new creations in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells (Romans 8:9).  Jesus likened the one who hears and obeys His words to a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and when the rains came and the winds blew it would stand firm.  Since He is our LORD, we ought to do as He says--and we are indeed blessed when we hear and obey Him.