Saturday, February 16, 2008
PSALMthing The Father Desires...

I went to the last cluster prayer meeting today and felt that it has indeed been a fruitful time of spending time with not only my spiritual family, but more importantly spending time worshipping our Father and singing to Him praises. So what does the prayer meeting have to do with psalm 47 then?

Well, I was reading psalm 47 this morning and I thought that it was a pretty normal psalm. It mentions a lot about praising God by singing or by shouts of joy, something we do often. However, by the end of today’s prayer meeting, psalm 47 spoke out to me in a new way. At a deeper level, it actually talks about God’s people gathering together to praise Him.

Now what about God’s people then? Know that the Israelites often thought of themselves as exclusively God’s people, however in this psalm it mentions that the nations will gather not only as an assembly to praise God but as the people of the God of Abraham. This means that each and every one of us are actually insiders included in God’s covenant with the Israelites.

I was reminded of the heart of the Father in today’s cluster meeting. Know that the God’s desire is that he doesn’t want anyone to perish. Do we have the same desire as God’s heart? If we do, we ought to follow what Jesus is doing now at the right hand of God. Just as He is interceding for us all, we should be praying for our friends who have not been saved. No matter what they have done to you, whether good or bad, know that God loves them and He wants them to be save. God loves the sinners but hates the sin.

Pastor Jo also mention that if should we have an enemy, that would be the devil. The devil will indeed be prowling like a lion in the shadows, stopping us from doing what God intended us to do. No matter what the devil does, he is never bigger and more powerful than God. Know that when we submit ourselves to God, the devil will flee.

The devil may deceive you, saying that you are not worthy to come before God to worship Him because you are sinner. However, I was reminded of Jude 24-25 which says ‘Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.’ It is not the devil who would decide whether you are able to come before God but God Himself and Jesus says come as you are.

God’s heart indeed goes out to His people. He does not want anyone to perish and He wants His people to gather as one assembly to worship Him, to sing praises to Him. Will you align the desires of His heart with yours today? Will you live a life of surrender to Him today? If you do, know that you will indeed be greatly bless by Him.

Labels: Devotion, PSALM devotions