A SPIRITUAL TO-DO LIST

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk.com.

In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Give praise to the Lord,

Proclaim His name;

Make known among the nations what He has done.

Sing to Him, sing praise to Him;

Tell of all His wonderful acts.

Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Look to the Lord and His strength;

Seek His face always.

Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced, you His servants, the descendants of Abraham, His chosen ones, the children of Jacob.

He is the Lord our God.

Psalm 105:1-7a

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I don’t know how you handle your daily and weekly affairs but if you’re busy like me, you need to write things down or else you’ll forget something. There’s simply too much to be done and my memory just isn’t good enough to remember it all.

This is why I use a to-do list, a list of items I need to ensure I get done. The list serves as a reminder of things I still have to do and an indicator of how much I have already accomplished. The list might include work-related tasks I need to do, things I need to do for church, errands I need to run, correspondence or bills I need to send, and, of course, the infamous honey-do items, things I need to do around the house that my wife puts on my list.

If it weren’t for my to-do list, I’m afraid I would forget a lot of things that need done.

As I thought about this, I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if we had a spiritual to-do list,” a list of things we should do each day to grow stronger and closer in our relationship with the Lord.

Well, thankfully we can find some components of such a to-do list at the start of the 105th Psalm. This spiritual list has eight specific actions we should write down and keep close to make sure we achieve all of them during the course of every day the Lord blesses us with. Here are the items:

1. Give praise to the Lord.

When we sit back and count our blessings, we can’t help but give praise to the Lord who gives us every good and perfect gift from above (James 1:17). He is deserving of our constant thanks.

2. Proclaim His name.

No matter who we’re talking to, we should always be ready to speak the name of the Lord. He should be a consistent part of every thought, every word, and every action as sometimes the very things we do reflect the very nature of the Lord and thus proclaim His holy and precious name.

3. Make known among the nations what He has done. Tell of all His wonderful acts.

One of the most powerful forms of ministering to others is through personal testimony. We can and should quote the scriptures as we instruct but if we can relate that scripture to how it has impacted our life in some way it just adds additional power to the word of the Lord. He has done so much for you and me and we should never cease to tell others about it.

4. Sing to Him, sing praise to Him.

We can speak praises to the Lord but the gift of song is meant to be separate and special in its own right. Now not all of us are gifted enough to pick up a microphone and sing for a congregation or other gathering but most everyone sings somewhere, even if in a place where no one else is around like the car, shower, at home, etc. There are too many songs of praise available for us to know them all so we should continuously listen to uplifting spiritual music that glorifies the Lord and then adopt singing those songs ourselves in a show of praise to the One who made song and places it in our collective spirits.

5. Glory in His holy name.

What does it mean to glory something? We don’t typically use the word as a verb but if you look it up, to glory is to “to feel or express joy or triumph.” When we think of the name of the Lord, we think about creation power and life-sustaining power and resurrection power that expresses the triumph God gave all over death who place their hope and faith in His Son and our Savior Jesus. Keeping in mind all that the Lord has done, all He is doing, and all He is yet to do cannot help but bring us to a place of unspeakable joy and victory, a joy and victory we should openly express to all we know.

6. Look to the Lord and His strength.

The power of the Lord is unfathomable. None of us fully know the extent of His might but we do know that it is exceedingly greater than our own. So when the matters of life press down on us, placing us under pressures that make it difficult to live, we need only look to the Lord and His strength which will sustain us and lead us to proclaim as Paul did, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13 (NKJV).”

7. Seek His face always. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Seeking is sort of innate to who we are. We seek for all kinds of things and, unfortunately, most of the things we seek are not of the Kingdom but rather of the world.

People seek love and work and the best deals on any number of material items they can purchase. They seek success and acceptance and destinations for travel. Maybe we could be best suited in all these pursuits to first seek the Lord and His will and righteousness. What did Jesus teach? “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33).

When we seek and find the Lord, we will realize all our needs are met in Him and will ever be brought to a place of rejoicing and satisfaction.

8. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced.

Sometimes people so quickly forget all the things the Lord has done for them. They get so caught up in the here-and-now that they are blinded to how he has helped and delivered them in the past, not only in their own lives but in the lives of a multitude of others who have come before them.

There is no better account of the Lord’s wonders, miracles, and judgments than in the Holy Bible and this is why we should be in it and studying from it every day. Rest assured that if you do this and make it part of your daily discipline – a regular item on your spiritual to-do list – that you will never forget what the Lord has done and you will have a renewed hope that the same Lord who helped His people in the Scriptures is the same Lord who is there for us today.

My prayer is that you will put today’s word from the Lord to daily use. Note that as we see often in the word of God, each one of these challenges starts with an action word. They aren’t mere suggestions but rather commands that order us to carry out each of the tasks the Lord is giving. For in the final translation as framed by the last line in the scripture we’re studying today, He is the Lord our God, our Master and Keeper - our Savior, Redeemer, and Friend. Our lives have been in His hands since the very beginning and so we should make Him our focal point every second of every minute of every hour of every day as we carry out our spiritual to-do list.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com