Nothing More Sure

Psalm 66

English Standard Version (ESV)

 

To the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.

66 ^(A)Shout for joy to God, all the earth;
²     sing the glory of his name;
    ^(B)give to him glorious praise!
³ Say to God, ^(C)“How awesome are your deeds!
    So great is your power that your enemies^(D)come cringing to you.
^4 (E)All the earth worships you
    and sings praises to you;
    they sing praises to your name.” Selah

^5 (F)Come and see what God has done:
    ^(G)he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.
⁶ He ^(H)turned the sea into dry land;
    they ^(I)passed through the river on foot.
There did we rejoice in him,
⁷     who rules by his might forever,
whose ^(J)eyes keep watch on the nations—
    let not the rebellious exalt themselves.Selah

⁸ Bless our God, O peoples;
    let the sound of his praise be heard,
⁹ who has kept our soul among the living
    and ^(K)has not let our feet slip.
¹⁰ For you, O God, have ^(L)tested us;
    you have tried us as silver is tried.
¹¹ You brought us into ^(M)the net;
    you laid a crushing burden on our backs;
¹² you let men ^(N)ride over our heads;
    we went through fire and through ^(O)water;
yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

¹³ I will come into your house with burnt offerings;
    I will ^(P)perform my vows to you,
¹⁴ that which my lips uttered
    and my mouth promised ^(Q)when I was in trouble.
¹⁵ I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals,
    with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;
I will make an offering of bulls and goats.Selah

^16 (R)Come and hear, all you who fear God,
    and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
¹⁷ I cried to him with my mouth,
    and high praise was on^[a] my tongue.^[b]
18 If I had ^(S)cherished iniquity in my heart,
    ^(T)the Lord would not have listened.
¹⁹ But truly ^(U)God has listened;
    he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰ Blessed be God,
    because he has not rejected my prayer
    or removed his steadfast love from me!

(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+66&version=ESV)

 

This Psalm reminds me of an old hymn we used to sing.  “I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love, I love to tell the story because I know ‘tis true; it satisfies my longing as nothing else can do.”  And that, my friend is why I write these blogs. 

God has performed many wondrous deeds from the parting of the Red Sea to the tumbling of the walls at Jericho.  But even with all of that, we in our human state want more.  The Old Testament is full of stories where people failed time and time again.  Even people who saw the miracles of God and spoke to Him directly failed to always trust Him.  Many times today we say, “Just give me a sign” and many times He does, only for us to turn our backs when things don’t go our way.  How soon we forget when we make a deal with God and He delivers but we don’t.  We are no different from the Israelites who worshipped a golden calf or who grumbled and complained when things didn’t go their way.  Oh, it is easy to look at their actions and judge them but all the while we are just like them.  We don’t have a pillar of smoke or a cloud to follow but rather we have the Holy Spirit guiding us throughout our lives but often times we don’t follow or we grumble along the way.

So what has God done for me?  Why do I love to tell the old old stories?  God loves me so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.  Yes, He did it for you too.  God wants all of us to come to Him but we can only do that by believing Jesus is God’s only son, a part of God Himself and confessing that we are sinners.  He has a wonderful life planned for us but we must believe and trust in Jesus to be eternally with our Father in Heaven.  But even more, God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in the lives of believers so that we may know and confess our Maker to others. 

There have been times in my life that I felt the hug of my Savior.  There have been times that the only truth I knew for sure was the truth of the Bible.  There is nothing else on this earth that explains our being like the Bible does.  There is nothing else that can explain the joy in midst of sorrow or the hope found in death.  There is no other book that displays human behavior for what it is nor is there another book that can explain the wondrous story of what God has done for us even in our human state.  I love to tell the story because I know that the God of this universe is worthy of praise, glory and honor; I put my trust in Him and Him alone.

Seek Him and know that He is God.

Seeking Him with all my heart,

Sheila