In the Shadow of the Cross

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Psalm 100 is a great psalm on giving thanks. I would like to remind us all that we have so much to be thankful for, such as God’s grace and His love and patience.

There are many psalms in the Bible where thanksgiving is exclaimed, but I like Psalm 100. So let’s look at this particular psalm in detail.

“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are his people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the LORD is good and His loves endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations”
(Psalm 100; 1-5 NIV)

“Shout for joy to the LORD all the earth”. Folks, our joy should not be contained in a Sunday morning worship service… but always. In delight we should SHOUT for joy. What do we have to be joyful about? Are you kidding me?! We are able to take breath in and out of your lungs because He allows it, while He holds the entire creation in His hands. If you have a small concept of God, and His characteristics, then I can understand why you would ask that question. However, God is abundantly BIG. His grace, and mercy and His wonderful gift of salvation through His Son Jesus are immeasurable. God’s universal kingdom and our place in it- is enough. Folks, this in itself is quite enough to shout about!

“…worship the LORD with gladness.” Giving thanks to God is a form of worship. Try thanking God each morning as you wake up and say ‘thank you Lord for this day, thank you for your creation that I get to enjoy, and the benefit of being your child. I am glad that I can honor you and praise you today”. Start you day with this short worship and expand from there.

“…come before Him with joyful songs…” Again, singing doesn’t just have to be on Sundays. Many song lyrics have great theology in them and wonderful prayers –if just spoken, but why not sing them? Who cares about the quality of your voice. Sing joyfully. That presupposes that you are truly joyful. (this topic is another article). God is wonderful. God is gracious and loving, even in our rebellion against Him. God is stronger than our circumstances. Sing joyfully.

“…know that the LORD is God.” Jehovah is the only true God. We have no other God but Him. Knowing, is being thoroughly assured that God reigns and is in full control of the universe and all things in it. God is omniscient. He is everywhere and knows all; rest in that knowledge. Rest in this assurance and in His holiness. We all can rest in the fact that God is on the throne. The LORD is God. Any disagreement to this truth does not change the fact.

“…it is He who made us and we are His, we are His people, the sheep of this pasture”.
God created humankind. We didn’t evolve from algae or tree bark or other nonsense, we were ‘formed’ by God. Woman was formed from man, God created us; we didn’t evolve over millions of years. Re-read Genesis, Chapters 1 and 2. The analogy of the sheep is quite accurate. Just like sheep, people are filthy, dumb, fearful and wandering creatures. We follow the pack aimlessly and we need a Shepard desperately.

“…enter His gates with thanksgiving and His court with praise”. Gods owns everything. His gates and His courts can be considered everywhere. Everywhere we are, God is there. Yes, His courts and His gates are heaven…. “His kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” Gods owns it all. Wherever you are, He is, so give praise in all that you do and everywhere. Heaven will be the place of eternal praise and worship; we will be singing Holy, Holy, Holy forever.

“…give thanks and praise His name”. His name is who He is. His name is beautiful and magnificent and deserves all respect and reverence I can render. His name is taken lightly in today’s society. It is spoken with no love, no respect, no sense of awe, no obedience, no humility, no deep reverence, nor contrition –but rather as a slang term or worse. God’s name is holy and must be revered, respected with honor and with a deep sense of our own sinfulness and the realization of how much of a gap there is between our Holy God and our sinful nature.

“...for the LORD is good and His love endures forever.” The depth of His goodness is beyond our comprehension. He loves us so much that He gave His only Son for us.
(US) is not exclusive to the elect, it is all of us who believe in Him, we can be saved and have life eternal with Him. God gave His son to the world. A world full of hatred, full of sinful people, full of people who have no righteousness or any worth or merit with which they can claim to enter into heaven. But yet, He loves this world, all of us. God’s heart must be broken whenever any one of us stray, and reject His love, His redemption, His promise of salvation. Yet, His goodness and His grace is truly amazing, particularly to those who openly and publicly renounce and reject anything to do with Jesus our Lord, and God our Father. His came to save us, even while we were still in our rebellion. In rebellion, we will have nothing to do with Him, but yet He loves us. We see the example that Jesus pointed out when He said, “... we should love our enemies...” What?! Love our enemies? That is so foreign for us in today’s society. But the answer is a big -Yes, for God loves His enemies as well. But He lavishly pours out His grace on us, even as we turn our backs on Him. He extends His arms to embrace us. Oh yes, our LORD is indeed good.

“…His faithfulness continues through all generations.” Our God is so faithful to His children.

“If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself “
(2 Timothy 2: 13 NIV)
God is faithful by His very nature. He will remain faithful to us regardless of our limitations or shortcomings, or our sins and that is a wonderful promise.

“The LORD is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made. The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down”
(Psalm 145: 13-14 NIV)

This Psalm once again tells us of our LORD’S faithfulness to all His promises and He loves all that He has made. It doesn’t say, He loves only certain people, or only loves
the elect, but all people He has made. You may be saying that is great, but times have changed. God hasn’t changed, He is immutable. He is what He is and always has been and will be. He endures forever, so His love and other attributes will also endure forever. This idea of “forever” is quite a promise!

As Christians we can rest assured in these promises – which is all the more reason to sing joyfully songs of thanksgiving!

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