Allergies are really hitting me this morning…makes it hard to focus, but I’ll give it my best shot.
Psalm 119:49-56
49 Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.
50 This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
51 The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.
52 When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD.
53 Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.
54 Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.
55 I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law.
56 This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.
Today, the psalmist begins by asking the Lord to remember his own word to the psalmist. The writer takes hope in the words of God. Then, in verse 54, what Don Wyrtzen calls “a mandate for the Christian musician.” “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.” The NIV translates this, “Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.” In other words, the songs that I write have the them of the decrees of the Lord, the Word of God. “The content of our art must be the magnificence of God’s truth.”
(From A Musician Looks At the Psalms, by Don Wyrtzen)
Psalm 119:145
With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O LORD! I will keep your statutes.
“It is better to take time from sleep, than not to find time for prayer. We have access to God at all hours, and if our first thoughts in the morning are of God, they will help to keep us in his fear all the day long.”
This is why I get up and do this every day. I could sleep at least an hour longer every morning, and still get ready for work in time. But I need this time with God every day. It is crucial to my day; essential to my life.
(From Matthew Henry Daily Readings)
THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE
O Great I AM,
Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being
with whom one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day,
A mighty God, who, amidst the lapse of worlds,
and the revolutions of empires,
feels no variableness,
but is glorious in immortality.
May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives;
that, while all creatures are broken reeds,
empty cisterns,
fading flowers,
withering grass,
he is the Rock of Ages, the Fountain of living waters.
Turn my heart from vanity,
from dissatisfactions,
from uncertainties of the present state,
to an eternal interest in Christ.
Let me remember that life is short and unforeseen,
and is only an opportunity for usefulness;
Give me a holy avarice to redeem the time,
to awake at every call to charity and piety,
so that I may feed the hungry,
clothe the naked,
instruct the ignorant,
reclaim the vicious,
forgive the offender,
diffuse the gospel,
show neighborly love to all.
Let me live a life of self-distrust,
dependence on yourself,
mortification,
crucifixion,
prayer.
(From The Valley of Vision)
Prayers from the Presidential Prayer Team
HEALTH CARE
Veterans of the first Gulf War as well as current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan now have a smoother path toward
receiving health-care benefits and disability compensation, according to the Veterans Administration.
Swine flu H1N1 no longer represents a major threat to the U.S. population because most people are immune to the
virus that caused last year’s pandemic, health officials reported this week.
Pray for our veterans who have sacrificed and lost much and need medical, psychological and spiritual help.
Father, I pray that the theme of my songs will always be your glory and magnificence! Let your praise and worship be the central them of not only all the songs that I write or sing, but let it be theme of my entire life!
I also pray that my desire will always be to start my day with prayer and devotions to you, Lord. I thank you that you have made me so that I cannot bear to miss these times.
Lord, I pray that you would turn my heart from any appearance of vanity. Let me depend upon you only, and give me that eternal interest in Christ. Give me love for all that I would come into contact with.
The glory of God is a worthy theme for our lives. Let us sing joyfully of his glory and magnificence, and let it be the theme of our lives.
Grace and peace, friends.
Spaces of Beauty, Grace, Prayer, and Mercy 