SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/16/2012
8:08:28 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm
149-PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 149:3-5
Message of
the verses: We will look at more of Psalm 149 in today’s
Spiritual Diary, but first I want to quote what Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the end of
his introductory commentary, This psalm is a primer on worship and gives us the
basic instructions we need.”
Worship The
Lord Fervently (vv. 3-4): “3 Let
them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel
and lyre. 4 For the LORD takes pleasure
in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.”
I think it was back in the late 1990’s that I first
listened to a CD that was made in Jerusalem by Paul Wilbur who is a Pastor from
Chicago. The CD is entitled “Shalom
Jerusalem,” and sometime after I listened to the CD we were able to by a video
tape of it. There was Jewish dancing
that was seen while the music was playing, and I would suppose that this
dancing was the type that is mentioned in verse three, for Jewish dancing is
interpretive dances that point to the Lord and not some person’s talent. There are examples of dancing spoken of in
the Scriptures, Exodus 15:20; Judges 11:34; 1Samuel 18:6; and Jeremiah 31:4).
Now as we move into the Church age we find that the
Church patterned itself after the type of worship that was found in the Jewish
Synagogues where we find the reading of the Scriptures along with expounding on
them and also prayer.
At this point I want to quote some writings from Dr.
Wiersbe on this section because of the importance of the topic of worship. “Spiritual fervency must not be confused with
fleshly enthusiasm. There are false worshiper
as well as true worshipers (John 4:22-24; Col. 2:16-23), and some people who
think they are filled with the Spirit are really being fooled by the
spirits. Bringing false fire into the
sanctuary can lead to death (Lev. 10:1-11).
Our purpose is not to please ourselves or to demonstrate how ‘spiritual’
we are. Our purpose is to delight in the
Lord (147:11), and humility is one virture that brings Him great joy (Isa.
66:1-2). ‘1 ¶ Thus says the LORD,
"Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house
you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? 2 "For My hand made all these things, Thus
all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But to this
one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles
at My word.’ The Lord gives spiritual
beauty to those whose worship brings Him delight. Worship ought to be beautiful, for we are
beholding the beauty of the Lord (27:4; 29:2; 90:17; 96:9) and becoming more
like the Lord (2Cor. 3:18). Worship must
focus on God, not on us, and it must be enrichment, not entertainment. The experience of true worship can help us
experience deliverance from the bondage of sin and the world.” 2Cor. 3:18 says, “But we all, with unveiled
face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Romans 8:29 says “For those whom He foreknew,
He also predestined to
become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the
firstborn among many brethren.”
Worship the Lord Gratefully (v.5): “5 Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let
them sing for joy on their beds.” “5 Let
the saints rejoice in this honour and sing for joy on their beds.” (NIV)
The Hebrew word that is translated “glory” in the NASB is
translated “honor” in both the NIV and the NLT.
When looking it up I find that this Hebrew word is translated 32 times
in the KJV in different parts of the OT.
Dr. Wiersbe states that “honor” is the privilege of worshiping the true
and living God. We as believers have
this wonderful privilege and honor of worshiping the Lord of Glory. The Word of God came first to the nation of
Israel and not it is passed onto the Church as we not only have the Old
Testament, but now we also have the New Testament.
I am in the process, the early process of trying to wade
my way through a book that is written by A. W. Tozer entitled “The Knowledge of
the Holy,” and at this point, because it goes along with the worship of the
Church, I would like to make some quotes from it. Before I do this I want to kind of set the
stage: The book is about knowing God,
which is the title of a book by J. I. Packer, and talks about the same thing,
that is how we can know God. It speaks
of the attributes of God and both “Knowing God,” and also “The Knowledge of the
Holy was written in the mid 20th century. Tozer says that the most important question a
person can ask is “What comes into our minds when we think about God.” How are we to learn to worship our God in the
way that He desires for us to worship Him if we do not know Him? Tozer states that in the mid 20th
century the Church was moving away from knowing God in the way that we should
know Him, and this great problem has not gotten any better as we entered into
the first and second decade of the 21st century. Tozer writes in his Preface to “The Knowledge
of the Holy” these words “I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from
the popular religious mind. The Church
has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so
low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has done not deliberately, but
little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes
her situation all the more tragic.” He
goes on to state “Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of
Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit.” This statement makes me think of a similar
statement that Dr. Wiersbe wrote in his “Be” book that he wrote on Ruth and
Ester, where a question was asked “How much difference would it make in the
life of the Church today if the Holy Spirit was not present in the believers?” His answer was very little. I know that this is not true in all local
churches and for all believers, but if one looks honestly at the dominant type
of church in the world today it would be like what Christ spoke of the church
at Laodicea in the third chapter of Revelations. Many scholars have stated that the order of
the churches found in the second and third chapters of Revelations is prophetic
in the way the churches were throughout the history of the Church, so if we are
in the time period of the Laodicean Church then we are near the end of the
Church.
I am sorry to get a bit off of the subject, but I think
it was necessary and does fit into worship.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is my desire
to continue to know my God more and more and better and better so that my
worship of Him will be pleasing to Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to learn contentment, continue to be
transformed by the renewing of my mind through the Word of God, and to know God
better and better
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 121:1
1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where
shall my help come?
12/16/2012 9:36:49 AM
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