Encouragement and Prayer:) August 5, 2014

August 5, 2014 - 9 minutes read

Children of the Living God, Come and sing, Sing out loud! Children of the Living God, Sing to the Living God! Sing of the wonders He has made, Bird in flight, Falling rain. Sing of the wonders He has made, Sing to the Living God!

How He loves us with great love, He who sits enthroned above. For our lives He spilled His blood, Sent His Spirit like a flood. Children of the Living God, Sing to the Living God!

Sing of His gentle healing hands, How they found the lowliest man. Sing of His gentle healing hands, Sing to the Living God!

Sing of the mercy that He gives, though we sin, He forgives. Sing of the mercy that He gives, Sing to the Living God!

Sing for the morning when He comes in the clouds, Glorious Son! Sing for the morning when He comes, Sing to the Living God!

Brothers and Sisters,

I pray there is a song in your heart that you can’t help but to sing out loud! In the midst of “it all” we live In Christ… He indwells us! “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” :). Psalm 91:1. Moreover, “I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” v. 2. Even in Psalm 90, Moses prayed, “Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” v. 1 In AWE we praise our sovereign God, He alone is “from everlasting to everlasting YOU are God.” v. 2b.

How temporary our lives on earth. The time of our existence in comparison to eternity is like a withering blade of grass. However, this tiny part of my existence does determine much! Your life and mine matters to our Holy God. In fact, we rejoice, for God in His great mercy provided salvation through Jesus for us who believe:). Our gracious God teaches us how to make the most of the time allotted to each of us. Paul said,

“With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power HE may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thes. 1:11-12. Very cool!

Original sin through Adam set the pace and I readily join. So often I live for the moment… my choices leave God out of life process. Therefore, we cry out for forgiveness, recognizing and confessing my part in the sin problem, but also choosing to embrace, appropriate, surrender, to our Holy God everyday. The writer of Hebrews writes,

“Therefore, brothers [sisters] since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” 10:19-22

Our ongoing appeal through prayer, “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Psalm 90:13-14

I know many of you struggle and others suffer: besetting sins, loss of loved ones, sickness, heart ache, etc., One writer wrote, “Though we may live seventy or even eighty years of age, our lives are treadmills of trouble and frustration, and all too soon we are whisked away.” Well, yes we have our seasons! God cares and has a purpose…our optimism is found “IN HIM.” “How blest is life if lived for Thee!” Persevere! Pray with tears for our brothers and sisters suffering: those in our churches, our families, overseas, etc.,

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us- YES, establish the work of our hands.” v. 17

As we strive in His strength to reach the many many without Christ throughout Alpine and the surrounding communities, youth, adults, families, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, ALL people groups, how desperately we need our God to establish the work of our hands! Pray with us for this end, to the glory of God alone!

Verse 17. God is glorified and his work advances when his church is beautiful. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness,—that beauty which in the Lord Jesus himself shone with lustre so resplendent, and which ought to be repeated or reflected by every disciple. And it is towards this that all amongst us who love the Saviour, and who long for the extension of his Kingdom, should very mainly direct their endeavours. Nothing can be sadder than when preaching or personal effort is contradicted and neutralized by the low or unlovely lives of those who pass for Christians; and nothing can go further to insure success than when prayer is carried out and preaching is seconded by the pure, holy, and benevolent lives of those who seek to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.—James Hamilton.

Verse 16-17. “Thy work.” “The work of our hands.” You will observe a beautiful parallelism between two things which are sometimes confounded and sometimes too jealously sundered: I mean God’s agency and man’s instrumentality, between man’s personal activity and that power of God which actuates and animates, and gives it a vital efficacy. For forty years it had been the business of Moses to bring Israel into a right state politically, morally, religiously: that had been his work, And yet, in so far as it was to have any success or enduringness, it must be God’s work. “The work of our hands” do thou establish; and this God does when, in answer to prayer, he adopts the work of his servants, and makes it his own “work”, his own “glory”, his own “beauty.”—James Hamilton.

Community: Band of Brothers: Thursday, Aug 7. 6pm dinner, 7 pm feeding:).
If you can make it, come join brothers from different churches for a time of fellowship. Bethel Assembly 1929 Arnold Way, Alpine.

Sing of the mercy that He gives, though we sin, He forgives. Sing of the mercy that He gives, Sing to the Living God!

Let us know how we can pray for you. Through the Alpine Youth Center and Compassionate Ministries we have resources to help your church serve those most in need, especially those in the Body of Christ.

LoVe YOU much!

Randall:).

References: “Children of the Living God” By Fernando Ortega

Allen, Leslie (1979) The International Bible Commentary. (ed.) FF. Bruce.

Treasury of David Psalm 90
by Charles H. Spurgeon Psalm 90 Exposition Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings Hints to the Village Preacher Other Works TITLE. A Prayer of Moses the…