PSALM 150 We Come

PSALM 150  KJV
Praise ye the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary:
Praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him in his mighty acts:
Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:
Praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance:
Praise him with stringed instruments and organs
Praise him upon the loud cymbals:
Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.
Praise ye the LORD.

In Psalm 150 we each come to love the LORD our God
with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.

It is wonderful that, in prayer, although we come as members
of God,s covenant community and as members of the body of Christ,
we come as individuals before our personal compassionate God,
who lays his hands on each remembered head.

Across His mighty firmament, His divine touch  gives life
and purpose to each beautiful created being.

Hallelujah,  means   Praise ye the LORD.
Ye, means you personally.

We come in awe before the mystery of God
who formed us on the palm of His hand.
In this holy place we are sanctified by His presence.

Music sometimes helps us to express ourselves more deeply
and with more feeling than with words alone.
Psalm 150 invites us to come before the Lord
united in song, accompanied by gifted, inspired musicians,
to express our heartfelt praise.
One in the Spirit and in harmony with heavenly choirs,
our praise is inhabited by the presence of God.

Psalm 150  NAB
Alleluia
Praise the LORD in his sanctuary,
   praise him in the firmament of his strength
Praise him for his mighty deeds,
   praise him for his sovereign majesty.
Praise him with the blast of the trumpet,
   praise him with lyre and harp,
Praise him with timbrel and dance,
   praise him with strings and pipe.
Praise him with sounding cymbals,
   praise him with clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
   praise the LORD! Alleluia.

PSALM 149 God Invites

Zephaniah 3:7   NAB
The LORD , your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior;
He will rejoice over you with gladness
and renew you in his love.
He will sing joyfully because of you
as one sings at festivals.

Psalm 149:4  ESV
For the LORD takes pleasure in his people
he adorns the humble with salvation.

Psalm 149:4  NAB
For the LORD loves his people
and adorns the lowly with victory.

The salvation to which we are invited
is victory over sin and death.
We are invited to the victory celebration.

When there was some good news, which was so good
that we had to share it, we shared it with people
who would understand and share our joy.
We can share joy with people who love us.

Psalm 47:1 ESV
Clap your hands, all you peoples !
Shout to God with loud songs of joy.

Psalm 149:3  ESV
Let them praise his name with dancing
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.

The victory is a victory over evil and wickedness.
It is God's sovereign purpose to defeat wickedness.
The victory over hunger, injustice and suffering
is either our victory or we are on the wrong side !
Those who will have joy in this victory are those
who truely love Jesus and belong to Him !

Those who have no interest in this victory over
wickedness may have time to double their pension,
but their time is short.

There is something in store for those who are committed
to implementing the will of God, the word of God, and
love of God in their own lives and society.

Psalm 136   concludes each verse with
"for his steadfast love endures forever"

God's people are invited ( called ) to mirror
His love for them and for others,
so they are called;-    hasidim.....faithful ones.

PSALM 148 We Believe

1 JOHN 5 verse 1 and 2  Revised English Bible
1  Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ,
    is a child of God.
2  It follows that when we love God and obey
    his commandments, we love his children too.

"Believing" has a transforming effect on us.
One of the characteristics of New Testament prayer
is union with God's will.!
Believers singing psalm 148 find themselves in a
global spirituality of love and union
as we join in heavenly worship with ;-
                          all his angels,     verse 2  ESV   and
                          all his saints,      verse 14  ESV

We believe, and when we do ,we become aware of
our membership of, the community of God's love,
which is creation , since all things were created in love.

When the psalmist mentions
fire and hail, snow and ice
gales of wind that obey his voice         Psalm 148:8
we are to know that these things happen
according to the will of God.
It is the same God who says
I will give you understanding and 
set you in the way you must go.           Psalm 32:8

God's will is carried out in the hail and snow
and our own lives unfold according to the same will.
When we have an awareness of our own life being
an integral part of God's will and purpose
let's not resist, but go fully with it in His perfect love
for we believe His love is perfect.

John 3:16  KJV
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish,
but have everlasting life.

John 20:29 NRSV
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe.

John 7:38 REB
Whoever believes in me , as scripture says,
" Streams of  living water shall flow from within him."
Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit
which believers in Him would later receive.,
because He had not yet been glorified.

PSALM 147 God Cares

Our Creator, the LORD our God
       who made heaven and earth
       the sea and all that is in them...........Psalm 146:6
created us to be much more than;-
" a bag of bones".... " 90% water"
or sixty cents worth of chemicals .

If we heard news of friends being subject to frightening pain,
we would not react like bags of bones or packs of chemicals
Our hearts are not made of stone..
A miner once refused to be rescued from a mine until his
pit pony was dug out and rescued too.
He cared. We care. God cares.
Memories of kindness ripple across the pool of time.
Christian mysticism is part of the life of basic Christianity.
That which is hidden
is also part of our ongoing experience.
Our caring God who made us in his own image
calls us to participate in trinitarian caring
in everyday life.
We can be caring , creative, and imaginative .
We experience inspiration and insight.
We can both think and dream.
On the day when God created human beings
he made them in his own likeness     Genesis 5:1 REB

He sends his command over the earth         
and his word runs swiftly.                             147:15 REB

As messages fly from our brain to our eyelid,
and as messages fly from our  finger tips to our brain, ( often subconsciously)
we who are made in the image of God, receive his command !
God sends his word verse 15, and verse 18,
We respond in spirit and truth and in his love
He reveals his word.     Psalm 147:18

His word is sustaining emotionally and spiritually.

It is he who heals the broken in spirit
and binds up their wounds.                     Psalm 147:3 REB

The LORD gives support to the humble    Psalm 147:6 REB

To care is Godly
To care is Christlike.
God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
                                                                        Romans 5:5
Love dissolves bitterness, selfishness, unforgiveness,
 arrogance, jealousy and  envy.
Those who walk in the Spirit walk always in the Spirit of Love
and their lives exude the love of Christ
Heavenly Father,
May we spontaneously care
and let love be our aim.       AMEN.

PSALM 146 GOD OUR HELP

Psalm 146 ESV
3    Put not your trust in princes......
5    Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob
      whose hope is the LORD his God
6    who made the heaven and earth.

This is not a theory.
this is a facet of the dynamic in which we choose to live.
Our hope is in God, our divine Helper.
Those who experience the enabling power of the Spirit of Christ
are aware that God's help can be physical, spiritual,  political,
military, personal, emotional, medical, even nutritional,
educational, and financial !
From the cradle to the grave our choices have consequences.
Verse 3 is a warning not to depend on people or leaders
who have little interest in us personally. Our Creator and Saviour
 has the very best intentions for our future and
for our lives now.
The testimony of the psalmist is often explicit.

Psalm 28:7 KJV
The LORD is my strength and my shield.
my heart trusteth in him, and I am helped:
therefore my heart rejoiceth;
and with  my song will I praise him.
Psalm 40:17 KJV
.....the Lord thinketh upon me,
thou art my help and my deliverer.

God's word to Isaiah speaks to us
Isaiah 41:10 KJV
Fear not for I am with thee, be not dismayed, for I am God:
I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee ;
yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Psalm 71:5-6 ESV
5 For you, O Lord are my hope,
        my trust, O LORD , from my youth.
6 Upon you have I leaned from before my birth;

The testimony of Isaac Watts ( 1674-1748 )
is in the same Spirit......from the first verse of a hymn he wrote.
     O God our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
  Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home.

Psalm 71:17 NRSV
     You have taught me from childhood , God.
Psalm 147:4  ESV
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wouinds.
Psalm 147:14 ESV
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
Psalm 23:5 ESV
You prepare a table for me, in the presence of my enemies,
you anoint my head with oil : my cup overflows.

We are enabled by the Creator and Sustainer of life.
Our ongoing relationship with Him , in constant prayer,
leads to reflective living,
and our everyday lives are lived out in the courts of His presence.

PSALM 145 PRAISE GOD

Psalm 145:1-2  NRSV
I will extol you, my God and King
   and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you
   and praise your name for ever and ever.

Lord may we always have a heart and mind to praise you,
to be in harmony with your will by praising you
to be in harmony with the choirs of heaven in our praise
and to be in harmony with the whole community of faith
by praising you in Spirit and truth.

Psalm 9:11 NRSV
Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion
Declare his deeds among the peoples.

Heavenly Father we pray for glad hearts and cheerful voices
to sing our praise to you.
May our sung praises be a beautiful and honouring
witness to You.

Psalm 51:15 NRSV
O Lord , open my lips
and my mouth will declare your praise.

Psalm 145:21 NRSV
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD
and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

Psalm 34:1 NRSV
I will bless the LORD at all times
his name shall be continually in my mouth.

Psalm 48:1 NRSV
Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.

Hebrews 13:15 NRSV
Through him (JESUS) then, let us continually
offer a sacrifice of praise to God.
That is the fruit of lips which confess his name.

Right from the start of Psalm 145,
the praise in which we participate
is continuous and unending
"and I will praise your name for ever and ever"  (verse 1)

The Lord our God is the object and the subject of our praise.
We take delight in expressing our praise.
The Spirit leaps within us when we recognize
the same Spirit of praise in those around us.
There is joy in being "one in the Lord" together in praise.
And since the Lord inhabits the praises of His people,
our joint praise draws us into the love and union of the Trinity.

Psalm 22:3 AV
But thou art holy
O thou that inhabitest the praises of ISRAEL.

PSALM 145 GOD IS GREAT

Psalm 145:3  NLT 1966
Great is the LORD ! He is most worthy of praise.
His greatness is beyond discovery!
(no one can measure his greatness)   NLT 2004 2nd edition.

`We need to consider Psalm 145:3
to be sure in our mind and heart
that Psalm 145:3 describes our own attitude in faith.
Our confidence in Psalm 145:3 helps us to realize
the truth of Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8
Malachi 3:6 NLT
I am the LORD, and I do not change.
Hebrews 13:8 NLT
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

 James 1:17 assures us that our God
will not vary from being  good and great.
James 1:17 KJV
Every good and every perfect gift is from above,
and cometh from the Father of lights, with whom is 
no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

We can depend that our God is constant, and that
the thoughts of his heart are consistent .
Psalm 33:11 KJV
The counsel of the LORD stands forever
The thoughts of his heart to all generations.

Psalm 145:9 ESV
The LORD is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Matthew 5:45b  & 48 ESV
He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
48  You therefore must be perfect
as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Psalm 8:1 TLV
O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth !
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
What a gift , to realize this!
The hedgerows are glistening with the presence of God
and the wildflowers radiant with his life.
Psalm 111:3 TLV
Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.
Psalm 145:13b TLV
he is gracious in all he does.

All that we see and smell, touch and taste and appreciate to be
very good, is made by one God and created from nothing..
In the light of the beauty and wonder of every detail of God's creation
we desire God's will for our own life and community,
and for our life and community  to be in perfect harmony
with His purposes and in His perfect plan for all creation.