PRAISING GOD (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

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

Great are Your purposes and mighty are Your deeds. Your eyes are open to the ways of all mankind; You reward each person according to their conduct and as their deeds deserve.

Jeremiah 32:19

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

We serve a God who displayed His amazing power through creation and showed us that nothing is beyond the work of His almighty plans.

We serve a God of love but also a God of judgment who holds us accountable.

And we serve a great God who has no equal, a God who is our great Protector and Refuge.

These are reasons why we should praise God as seen in the first three devotions of this nine part series on praising God, reasons drawn from the very words of the prophet Jeremiah more than 2,000 years ago.

As we continue today, we see Jeremiah adding to our list. Look at his words in verse 19 of Chapter 32:

Great are Your purposes and mighty are Your deeds. Your eyes are open to the ways of all mankind; You reward each person according to their conduct and as their deeds deserve. Jeremiah 32:19

From the prophet’s words, we find four more reasons to praise, worship, and adore Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls:

1. We should praise, worship, and adore Him because His purposes are great.

Think about the matter of being purposed for a moment.

God did not just bring us into His creation without a reason. We weren’t just made to sit around idly and ponder what our place is in the world.

No, He purposed us from the very start. All we need to do is seek His purposes for our lives, purposes that will be great and fulfilling and kingdom-advancing because those are the only kinds of purposes God has for His people.

Give thanks today and praise God for purposing you to do great things in His name!

2. We should praise, worship, and adore Him because His deeds are mighty.

Ask yourself this:

Who could create the heavens and the earth and all things within?

Who possesses the might to divide a great sea, holding the waters up like walls on either side so people could walk through?

Who has ever been able to get water out of a rock or send manna and quail from the heavens to feed a starving people?

Who has shown power to save all mankind through sacrificing His Son as an atonement for sin?

No one but God, that’s who. From the moment He was known, He has shown His penchant for mighty deeds, something He continues this very day. There is nothing beyond the work of His hands.

Praise Him for that today and every day.

3. We should praise, worship, and adore Him because His eyes are open to the ways of all mankind.

God is both omnipresent and omniscient, simply meaning He is everywhere and He knows all things. Nothing is beyond His sight. Nothing.

With this, none of us ever get away with sinning. There is no such thing as secret transgressions because even though we might be skilled at keeping them from others, we will never conceal anything from God.

Is there any better accountability point than knowing that God sees it all?

In my opinion there isn’t when you couple it with the fact that He hates sin and will not allow it to go unpunished. Conversely, He will favor those who He sees living in righteousness. These points lead to our final point of praise.

4. We should praise, worship, and adore Him because He rewards each person according to their conduct as their deeds deserve.

I remember when I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania as a young lad. My parents were as good as you could ask for and they definitely ran a tight ship at home. You had to when you had multiple kids to manage. If we were good and listened to what we were told to do, then we were in good graces with Dad and Mom and life was good. However, if we chose to be disobedient to them and violate their rules, then you could expect discipline and it wasn’t going to be something pleasant.

In the end translation, we were rewarded for our conduct and as our deeds deserved.

As we look at the scriptures today, we see the same principle holds true.

If we seek God’s will and live according to it, then we will live in a way that is pleasing in His sight and He will reward us accordingly.

If we choose to willingly and willfully sin in the presence of God which we have already learned is everywhere, then we can expect to be rewarded with His judgment and punishment because it’s what our deeds have earned us.

Either way, we get what we deserve or, as the Bible tells us, we reap what we sow.

Frankly, let’s all agree that it’s far better and more beneficial to be obedient to God’s expectation and demands, sowing seeds that will blossom and bloom into His favor and blessing unto us.

In sum, God’s purposes are great, His deeds are mighty, everything and everyone is in His sight, and He will react, respond, and dole out either favor or penalty as it is merited by our behavior.

More reasons to add to our list as to why we need to praise God and there are many more to come.

Part 5 will show us that tomorrow.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark
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