Monday, December 22,
2014, 5:40 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song, “Full Release.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read Psalm 34:1-18 (NIV84).
His Praise
I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my
lips.
My soul will boast in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and
rejoice.
Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
How many of us
can honestly say this is true of our lives? I don’t mean that we have to go
around saying “Praise Jesus” all day long, but that our speech should consistently
glorify God and should be that which would be for his praise, honor and glory.
He should be uppermost in our minds and hearts, and we should have a continual
attitude of praise and rejoicing for all that he is and for all that he has
done for us. I still need to grow in this area.
As well, he
should be foremost in what we regularly give praise to and in what we rejoice
over. How many times are we guilty of giving praise to other people or to
things or situations in our lives which bring us comfort and pleasure, but we
are lacking in praise and adoration of our Lord except for maybe on Sunday
mornings during a worship service where we sing praise and worship songs? And,
then we could just be mouthing words.
Every day we
should be praising our Lord, not just in private, but when we are with our
friends, family members, neighbors and/or coworkers. We should talk about him
and what he means to us, and/or share what he is teaching us each day, and/or
else we should give a word of comfort, encouragement, hope or counsel to a
brother or sister in the Lord. Yet, all of our words should be that which would
bring honor to our Lord, and not what would bring dishonor to him. This
definitely gives cause for reflection.
My Deliverance
I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my
fears.
Those who look to him are
radiant;
their faces are never covered
with shame.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his
troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
I can remember a
time in my life when this passage here was most meaningful to me. I had grown
up under the authority of an abusive father, so I also grew up feeling afraid
most all the time, too. I hugged myself and cried myself to sleep much when I
still lived at home with my parents. I built emotional walls around myself to
protect myself from further hurt, too. So, I came across to some people as one
who appeared to have it all together. They misjudged me, which then only added
more pain and suffering into my life. But, then one day, at God’s prompting, I
was trying to get to the bottom of all this when my friend felt God told her
what it was. She said it was a “spirit of fear.” So, we prayed for deliverance,
and God delivered me. I was free! I truly was now radiant!
Then, memories of
past hurts began to flood my mind and I relived those memories as though I was
currently going through them. I soon learned that I just needed to cry them out
to God and give them over to him, and allow him to heal me, but the healing was
a process over time, but it did come as I cried out to my Lord, and I let go of
the hurt, and I trusted him more and more with my life. The main thing I had to
learn was to trust in the absolute sovereignty of God over my life, to believe that
he had my best in mind, and that he would work all things out for good in my
life, which I believe he did. I am still tempted to be afraid sometimes, but I
just have to submit to God, trust him, and believe that he is in control, and
that he will accomplish his purposes in and through it all for his glory.
Fear the Lord
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the man who takes
refuge in him.
Fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack
nothing.
The lions may grow weak and
hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, my children, listen to
me;
I will teach you the fear of
the Lord.
Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good
days,
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking
lies.
Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
There is a bad
kind of fear, and there is a good kind of fear. The bad kind is what I
described above. It cripples us and it keeps us from moving forward in faith
and in trust with our Lord. It is the opposite of faith, and it binds us
instead of releases us.
The good kind of
fear, though, works in the opposite way. It is a kind of fear which is healthy
and which exercises wisdom, knowledge, understanding, discernment and respect.
For instance, I have a healthy respect of fire and of cars driving down the
street. I am not going to play with fire, and I will not walk out in the street
in front of a moving vehicle. This kind of fear is wise. It does not paralyze
but it energizes.
And, this is the
kind of fear that believers in Jesus Christ should have toward God. We should
not take him and his word lightly or casually. We should show him great honor,
respect and value by listening to what he tells us and then by doing what his
word teaches us. It is not the kind of fear I grew up under where I felt there
was a hammer hanging over my head all the time waiting to bop me in the head
when I didn’t get something right. It is a healthy fear which respects
reasonable boundaries and which does not test the limits to see how much we can
get away with. This fear of the Lord comes from a heart which also loves the
Lord and which desires to please him.
This fear of the
Lord is not being taught much at all in today’s modern church here in America,
and as a result so many who call themselves Christians treat sin so casually
and treat God with much disregard and disrespect. If we truly fear the Lord, we
should turn from our sin to the light of God’s Word, and from the power of
Satan to God, and we should submit ourselves to the cross of Christ, and in all
humility, love, serve, honor and obey our Lord in the power and strength of his
Spirit within us. We should walk daily in fellowship with him, his praise
should be on our lips, and our desire should be for him above all else.
The Brokenhearted
The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to
their cry;
the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them
from the earth.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
he delivers them from all their
troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed
in spirit.
As we go through
this life, there will be situations in our lives and people in our lives who
will break our hearts in one way or another. We are all human. Not one of us is
perfect. We are bound to hurt or to disappoint someone at some time or another.
Yet, it is in these times when we should call upon our Lord to heal our hurts
and to give us the grace we need to forgive those who have injured us. We need
to allow God to make us better, and for us not to become bitter. We must
forgive as God forgave us. And, we must release the pain to our Lord and trust
him to work all things out for our good.
Our Lord may or
may not deliver us out of suffering and pain, as his word says that suffering
and pain are what we must go through in this life, and that, as the Lord’s
servants, we should expect to be hated and persecuted. So, these kinds of
situations should not take us by surprise when they happen to us, and we should
not allow them to unsettle us, either, or to make us afraid again. God will
deliver us spiritually and emotionally from the effects of the affliction on
our minds and on our hearts, so we give it all to him, we submit to his
Lordship, we trust in his grace, and we believe in his promises, and we are
healed!
Full
Release / An Original Work / April 15, 2012
Walking
daily with my Savior
brings
me joy.
Loving
Father; precious Jesus;
He’s
my Savior and my Lord.
Gently
leads me; follow Him.
I’ve
invited Him within.
Now
abiding in His presence,
oh,
what peace.
From
my self-life
He
has brought me,
By
His mercy, full release.
Hope
and comfort,
peace
and safety Jesus brings
When
I daily bow before Him;
Obey
freely; do His will.
Follow
Him where’er He leads.
Listen
to Him; His words heed.
Now
obeying his words fully,
oh,
what love
That
He gives me
through
salvation,
By
His Spirit, from above.
Loving
Father; precious Jesus,
He’s
my friend.
With
my Savior, by His Spirit,
I
will endure to the end.
Share
the gospel, tell what’s true.
Witness
daily; His will do.
Tell
the world of how their Savior
bled
and died.
On
a cruel cross He suffered
So
that we might be alive.
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