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To God Be The Glory!

Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.  (Psalm 29:1-2, NIV).

This morning as I was watering our potted plants in the backyard, I was awed by the beauty of the violet-colored Morning Glories.  As my mother used to say, “they were showing out!” As I gazed upon their brilliance and beauty, I immediately thought of our Heavenly Father, the giver of these precious visionary jewels. The craftsmanship of these delicate desserts for the eye was delightfully pleasurable and wholesome! They cried out to their maker the praises He so rightly deserves!

In Psalm 29 David speaks of God’s power and majesty. God’s greatness, beauty, splendor, and magnificence are incomprehensible to us mere mortals. I think we get glimpses of His grandeur upon occasion; glimpses meant to interrupt the mundane and cause us to ponder, mull over the magnitude of His immensity and His eye for design and detail. Today the morning glories He created were passionately shouting praises to the one who created them! 

In worship, we can shout aloud our praises to the One who created us, nurtured us, and as believers, redeemed us! God has gifted each of us in different ways. That giftedness is meant to be used to give Him honor and glory whether in corporate worship or daily living. Each gift is different and to be expressed uniquely: voices recite, sing, and proclaim; hands play instruments, serve others and praise, and the list goes on. Whatever gifts we possess we are to utilize in service to our Master Designer!

Sunday was a powerful day of worship! We welcomed a new convert into our fellowship as he demonstrated his faithfulness in baptism. Josh powerfully proclaimed the Word. We celebrated the return of our Sanctuary Choir who gloriously lifted their voices to lead us in majestic worship! All this was done, not to give honor to ourselves, but to acclaim the awesomeness of our God! TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Fanny Crosby said it best in the hymn.

To God be the glory, great things He hath done;

So loved He the world that He gave us His son,

Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,

And opened the life-gate that all may go in.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice!

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice!

O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, 

And give Him the glory great things He hath done!

Take a moment today to ponder His beauty and praise Him!

Pastor Keith

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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