The Lord
blessed us in His House with His presence and grace. Praise the Lord for the
world that we live in. Praise the Lord for all the beautiful and brilliant
seasons. Praise the Lord for His Church, which is under the same management for
over 2000 years,. Praise the Lord for His blessing and grace at all times.
I received an e-mail
this morning, from a woman, a pastor's wife, in Bali, Indonesia, whom I met in
the streets of Bali during my recent visit there. She and her husband and family
serve the Lord in the City of Bali along with many churches praising the Lord
and worshipping Him and proclaiming His as the Lord of Lords and the King kings.
Praise the Lord that He is at a work around the corner and around the globe. We
have this assurance from Him that the gates of hell can not prevail against His
church.
Douglas Copeland wrote a book titled "Girlfriend in a Coma". In the book
a young woman comes out of a coma that she has been in since ‘79. After she has
been out of the coma for quite awhile, someone asks about her impressions of
people who live in the ‘90s. She says, “A lack. A lack of convictions, of
beliefs, of wisdom, or even of good old badness. No sorrow, no nothing. The
people I knew when I came back, they only, well, existed. It was so sad.” But
what would you expect from people who have crammed their lives with everything
but God?
Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust, talked about the goodness of God even in the terrible circumstances she faced. She wrote in her book: “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”’” Corrie concluded, “There is an ocean of God’s love available — there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love — whatever the circumstances.”
The words of the Psalmist tell us: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4).
At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C there is a large wooden altar from a Jewish synagogue. The synagogue was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove all Jews from that city. The soldiers had tried to destroy the altar. You can still see the hack marks of their axes, but still decipherable across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood. Though the axes of man attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still reads: “Know before Whom you stand.” The problem with our pagan culture is that we do not know before whom we stand. The Psalmist knew God, and therefore understood the world and what life was to be like in the world. He said, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:1-3).
Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust, talked about the goodness of God even in the terrible circumstances she faced. She wrote in her book: “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”’” Corrie concluded, “There is an ocean of God’s love available — there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love — whatever the circumstances.”
The words of the Psalmist tell us: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4).
At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C there is a large wooden altar from a Jewish synagogue. The synagogue was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove all Jews from that city. The soldiers had tried to destroy the altar. You can still see the hack marks of their axes, but still decipherable across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood. Though the axes of man attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still reads: “Know before Whom you stand.” The problem with our pagan culture is that we do not know before whom we stand. The Psalmist knew God, and therefore understood the world and what life was to be like in the world. He said, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:1-3).
In Christ,
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