JUST FOR WHO HE IS

Today let us start this message by giving praise and honor to our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ.  God is so faithful to us and his son loves us more than words can convey.  Psalms 63:1-4 give us good instruction in how to give praise.  Let’s read it together:

“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee:  My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.  Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.  Thus will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name.”

Welcome everyone to your 24/7, week long, online church service.  As always, everyone is welcome in this place.  There is so much to give God praise and thanks for, church.  Let’s look at the above scripture a little closer, shall we?  The very first sentence says exactly what we as believers can and should be saying daily.  O God, you are my God.  Isn’t it exciting to be able to truthfully say that just as you are God’s child, he is your God, your heavenly Father. 

The scripture says to praise him early.  The best time is as soon as you wake up.  Just say, thank you Lord for another day of life.  Verse 3 says because God’s loving kindness is better than life, we should and will praise him.  And verse 4 points out something that will help us.  All through our Christian experience we are taught how much God desires to bless us.  We pray for his blessing in every area of our lives, don’t we?  Lord, please bless us with money, bless us with good health, bless us with a good family.  Well, I think you get the point here, don’t you?

Now this scripture says (and I want you to get this) thus will I bless thee while I live.  Church, it is time to get our eyes off ourselves and begin to focus on God.  It is time for us to bless God.  So how can we do that?  By praising him with our lips – not for what he has done for us, but just for who he is.  We should bless our heavenly Father by our words and by our actions.  I guess what I am saying to you is this:  Stop whatever you are doing and just think and meditate on the awesomeness of God.

This past week I took a walk at night and as I looked up at the stars, I realized again that God made and placed those stars in the universe just for us.  When you look at the majesty of the mountains and the beauty of the plains, know this – God designed this earth.  The beauty of the oceans and lakes, the rivers and the streams all show us the nature of God.  I am not giving you a deep theological message here folks.  In fact, I am just pointing out the obvious that we tend to overlook. 

Only as we look outside of ourselves, away from the emotions, situations and circumstances we find our self in, do we see God in all of his fullness.  When we see God as he is, nothing on earth or beyond could be greater.  As we begin to view God unfettered by the human mind and the distortion of his ways by the world system, only then can we see how awesome God really is.  Suddenly, God’s love, mercy and grace toward us becomes so very real to us again.  Deuteronomy 4:29-31 points us to God’s goodness and faithfulness to us.  As we truly  acknowledge God in our lives,  all things in the Word of God become alive and true to us.  Deuteronomy 4:29-31 states this:

“But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and all thy soul.  When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shall be obedient unto his voice; (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God); He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.”

We used this scripture recently in a salvation message, yet it applies to this message of praise and worship as well.  Basically, it is telling you this – turn to God!!  Seek him and bless the Lord with all your heart and soul.  God is a merciful God and he will never forsake you as you follow these instructions, all God has for you will come alive for you again.  Psalms 9:10 states:

“And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee:  For thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”

Is not that the same as the scripture we just read in Deuteronomy?  There is a continuing theme throughout the Word of God, my friends.  Seek the Lord and he will show himself to you.  Receive his son, Jesus Christ, into your heart and he will never forsake you.  That is our God – merciful  and faithful in all his ways.

I pray this helps you to walk daily with God and his son Jesus.  After all, they walk daily with you, my friends.  Speaking of God’s faithfulness, I want to present to you a testimony we received last week.  For those of you that read or listened to last week’s message, you know we pleaded with you to pray for all prayer requests submitted to this online church.  Today you will see why that is so important.  If you will look at the prayer requests at the right side of this message, you will see a young lady by the name of Lilly.  Lilly is in high school.  She was very active in ballet and school activities.  We first received this prayer request at the end of 2010 and we have been praying for her ever since.  I know and am thankful that many of you have prayed for Lilly also.

I am going to present the testimony just as her mother sent it out by e-mail to friends and  relatives.  Please, do not skip this testimony, it is an answer to prayer.  The e-mail reads:

“I know this is a huge mailing list for me to send out.  But, I want everyone to know what God has done in our family.  For those of you that don’t know about Lilly, this is the whole story of what has been going on with her for the past year and a half.”

“In October of 2010, Lilly was diagnosed with scoliosis. At that time she had a 13-15 degree curve – no bigee. “Come back in four months,” they said and we’ll do another x-ray. February 2011 her curve was now 38 degrees! They said they have never seen a progression that fast before. She was immediately cast and put into a body brace, trying to avoid any worsening of the curve, because they operate at 40 degrees. She has hated that brace and had to wear it on the missions trip to Puerto Rico – while laying in sweat, and at church camp with a friend to help her into the brace each night, but is mortified to have to wear it during the day. She was supposed to be wearing it 16-18 hours a day. We do good to get her 10-12 hours in. She quit ballet because of pain in her back in May. But thankfully, that void was filled with drama at school and she’s been doing Irish dancing.”

“Ever since she had the brace, she had an appointment every four months to recheck her back. It went to 35, then to 32 degrees. The doctor said that they could have had an error of that much, but this past Friday she was 17 degrees!!!! She told me to come look at the before and after x-rays!! Praise God! Her back looks amazing. The doctor looked at me and said, “You do realize there is NO explanation for this.” The brace does not reverse any of the issues. Funny, she did say when we first asked what we could do, her answer was “Pray.” I liked her immediately. Isn’t God awesome! Our pastor had come to pray for Lilly just after she was diagnosed. When I told him Sunday of the news, he told me that Ray and I had been a testimony to him for our faith in the Lord through prayer. GOD IS REAL, AND HE IS STILL IN THE MIRACLE BUSINESS. Blessings to all – Janet”

We received another e-mail from Lilly’s grandmother in Georgia.  She said:

 “Bob and Vicki:  This is a wonderful testimony to the power of prayer and God’s faithfulness.  Thank you and your online church followers for yours and their prayers.  Love to you both- Sharon”

Now you know why your prayers are so important and why it is so important to praise God daily just for who he is.





God Bless You,

Bro. Bob