You might be thinking the psalmist who wrote Psalm 100 was just having a really good day, or perhaps just ignoring the world around him. At first glance, you might say "He doesn't live in my world!"
Psalm 100 A Psalm for giving thanks.
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into His presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, He is God!
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise!
Give thanks to Him; bless His name!
5 For the Lord is good;
His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.
From where does all this happiness come? Look at verse three, which simply and clearly points us to the Lord. This verse contains the foundation of the faith the Lord has given to you or wants to give to you. He is God! The Lord, is not a god, not one of many gods, but the Lord is God, the only one, true God. It is He who made us, along with all things in this world and in the entire universe and any other possible universes around us! He is Creator of all things; by definition and by His creation, we are His. We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. God named you and claimed you in your baptism, where He gave you faith to believe in Jesus, your Savior. And as God's created & claimed people, God provides for us all that we need to support our bodies and lives.
Of course, Satan the great deceiver and destroyer works quite successfully to take away our joyful gladness, singing, thanksgiving, praising and blessing. He and his minions in the culture around us scream loudly lies like these:
God is no god, He is a made-up character.
God did not create us; our complex bodies and the world around us just evolved.
You are your own person, and nobody else can claim you or tell you who you are.
God neither provides for us nor shepherds us; we should look to ourselves,
the government or whoever we choose to give us what we want.
These lies only produce corruption and death, trying to separate us from the one true God. They deny what the Lord God does, that He loves you, He has saved you from Satan and all your sins, and He has prepared a mansion for you in heaven where you will stay with Him forever.
So today and each day of the coming week, I commend you to sing/pray/meditate on Psalm 100, and give thanks to God, always remembering:
Know that the Lord, He is God!
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Mark
Pilgrim Lutheran Church, LCMS Burton, Michigan
office: 810.744.1188
We are Pilgrims with a Purpose:
Sharing God’s Love & Mercy with Each Other & the World.
Soli Deo Gloria
"The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble." Psalm 9:9
No comments:
Post a Comment