Praise 2 Worship: June 2012

Monday, June 25, 2012

I Will Sing!

But I will sing of your strength
I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning
For you have been to me a fortress
A refuge in the day of my distress
O my strength I will sing praises to you
For you O God are my fortress
The God who shows me steadfast love Psalm 59:16-17

A refugee camp is a place where we enter for protection from an enemy, for provision in a famine or a place of hope when all seems lost! God also gives us a place of refuge, and the shortest path to the door is to begin to sing! In a day filled with difficulties, trials and unanswered questions, the most unlikely thing to our minds is singing. Yet in God's plan he designed us to be like the birds who do not wait for a better day to sing. Are we under attack..then sing about God as your fortress. Are there troubles that come and overwhelm your feelings...then make that song about Him being a refuge. In the moments of our praise then God comes and surrounds us with his own songs. In a place when we seem to be abandoned, God comes and builds a fortress around us. In a day when everyone else seems to have forgotten us, God remembers. As we sing praises, He promises to come and show us His steadfast love. As the sun begins to come up this morning we can choose to try to work things out in our own way or we can just begin to sing!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Memories of My Father

How thankful I am to have stored so many happy memories of my Father who is now in the presence of the Father in Heaven. Not many remember my gentle father as one of the warriors who battled the armies of Hitler through Italy and France. Dad spent many weeks in a field hospital after being wounded by the bomb that sunk his landing craft. Yet of all the fighting and all the experiences, most important to him was one day when he was serving as artillery-man. The big gun was set and ready to fire,when suddenly Dad saw that the coordinates were wrong. His own fellow soldiers were in the gun sights! He called out just in time, the gun was not fired and lives were saved. How strange that with all the death and destruction that led to the final victory, Dad remembered how he had saved a life!

Romans 6:23 tells us of another day in history. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." God's law had us in its sights. We had done terrible and selfish things that called out for our death sentence. Yet at the very moment when God's true and holy justice was to be carried out, the Father called out "Stop! Don't fire!" Jesus came and drank the cup for us. He was struck down so that we could be given the gift of eternal life. Of all the wars and all the death and all the suffering of all time our Heavenly Father looked down and remembered life. Nothing else in all of the universe holds the value of a single soul to God. He gave His own Son for us, so we could live in Him.
As we remember Father's day today let's pause for a moment and really remember the most valuable treasure we have - the Father's gift of Life.