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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
I have swept away your offenses
like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have
redeemed you. Sing for joy, you heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout
aloud, you earth beneath. Burst into song, you mountains, you forests and all
your trees, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, He displays His glory in Israel.
Isaiah
44:22-23
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Do you like to sing?
Most people do, although they might
not ever want to do it in front of anyone, reserving their singing to the
isolation of the car or the shower or somewhere else they might have privacy.
Singing seems to be something that stirs within our souls and music has a way
to touch us emotionally unlike any other medium, perhaps because music is
written and performed by ordinary people like you and me, people who go through
all the same highs and lows, achievements and failures we all do.
The Bible speaks a lot about
singing and ascribes it as something we are all to do in worship to the Lord.
Not surprisingly, those songs are to be songs of praise and adoration, songs
that are punctuated by the joy we have in a Lord who blesses us so richly and
keeps us in His loving care. We are never in a place where we aren’t in the
presence of the Lord who can do all things and it’s in this spirit of comfort
and peace that we are to lift our voices up in songs of thanksgiving and
devotion. Look at these twelve verses that serve as a prelude to our scripture
passage from Isaiah 44 and an exhortation for all believers to sing to the
Lord:
Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19b
I will sing of Your love
and justice; to You, Lord, I
will sing praise. Psalm 101:1
Sing to the Lord! Give
praise to the Lord! Jeremiah
20:13a
Come, let us sing for
joy to the Lord; let us shout
aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Psalm 95:1
Sing to the Lord a new song,
His praise from the ends of the earth. Isaiah 42:10a
Praise the Lord, for the
Lord is good; sing praise to His name, for that is
pleasant. Psalm 135:3
I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my
mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. Psalm 89:1
May they sing of the
ways of the Lord, for the glory
of the Lord is great. Psalm
138:5
Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the assembly of His faithful
people. Psalm 149:1
Praise the Lord. How good
it is to sing praises to our
God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him! Psalm 147:1
Sing to God, sing in
praise of His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before Him—His
name is the Lord. Psalm 68:4
Sing to the Lord, for He
has done glorious things. Isaiah 12:5a
There is no doubt that we are to be
ever singing our praises to the Lord for He indeed is loving and just, the Rock
of our salvation whose glory is great. He is faithful across the generations
and deserves the fullest measure of our admiration and worship for He is the
Lord God Almighty and has done glorious things. Turning to our scripture for
today from Isaiah 44, we find some of those glorious things called out:
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the
morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing for joy, you heavens,
for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, you earth beneath. Burst into song,
you mountains, you forests and all your trees, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
He displays His glory in Israel. vv. 22-23
What do we glean from these two
verses? I believe there are three specific reasons we are called to sing for
joy unto the Lord:
1. We’re to sing for joy because the Lord has swept away our offenses
and sins.
Think of where we would be if we
had not been pardoned from our sins. We would be without hope. But because God
loved us so much, He gave His Son Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins and
through His death and resurrection we are justified (made just as if we had
never sinned) if we believe and trust in Jesus as Savior. Every day we need to sing
joyful praises unto God and His Son Jesus for the salvation we have in them.
2. We’re to sing for joy because the Lord has redeemed us.
Go back to the story of Ruth. Both
she and Naomi were widowed and destined for a life of poverty, pushed to the
fringes of the way society existed in Old Testament times. But then they
encountered Boaz who became their kinsman redeemer, a male relative who married
Ruth, delivering and rescuing her and Naomi from their hardship and troubled
situation.
We too are lost and destined for
destruction without a Redeemer to come to our rescue and deliver us from death
to life. The Lord God Almighty does this through His Son Jesus and in Him, we
have life now and forever. Sing with joy for this truth and revel in the promise
of eternal life through divine redemption!
3. We’re to sing for joy because the Lord displays His glory all around
us.
There is nowhere we can go where we
don’t experience the glory of the Lord. From the beautiful flowers and chirping
robins that reveal that spring is upon us, to the babies being born this very
moment, to the sun and moon and stars and clouds we see in the sky, all are
made by the hands of a marvelous, miraculous Creator who made the heavens, the
earth, and all things within. Open your eyes and ears, see and hear the glory
of the Lord, and celebrate it with songs of joy.
Friends, when we take full account
for all the Lord is in our lives, how could we not want to lift up our voices
to Him, singing His highest praise? For when we see all that we are as being
because of the Lord and recognize His abundant blessings in our lives, then I
believe our joy-filled songs of testimony will match that of the psalmist when he
wrote:
I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I
live. Psalm 104:33
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
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