The LORD is on high forevermore

"The LORD is on high forevermore." 

In another place we read, "He is highly exalted." 

He is still sustaining all things.

He has shown us wonderful things and we should praise Him for them. 

I think these verses are a great reminder of how faithful the LORD is to His promises. 

Is your heart heavy, troubled by life's circumstances? 

Look up friend; our Heavenly Father is still on His throne. He is on high forevermore.

I'm not saying life won't be tough, but if we keep looking to Jesus and continually remember our blessed hope of eternity with Jesus, He will strengthen us to be able to bear the troubles that will come.

Because He is faithful and has shown such great lovingkindness to us, we can choose to sing His praise with glad hearts.

He has been very good to me. 

I will choose to remember His mercies;

 I will sing praises to the LORD who reigns on high forever. 

Encouraging Scriptures

Your throne...

When things don't seem to be going the way you hoped they would, or problems have come, and there's distress and uncertainty within and without, this verse is a comforting one to hang on to. 

Nothing can ever take the Lord by surprise. 

He knows exactly what He's doing. 

Whether it feels like it or not, 

His plan for your life is the best possible!

(yes I'm preaching to myself again!) 

He only always does what is right. 

It's so good to remember He will reign forever. Nothing will ever change Him. 

He will always be faithful. 

Who is like You, O Lord?

There's a short answer to these questions: no one!

There is only One who is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.

Do you know Him as your God? 

This is the way Moses knew Him as he had seen many amazing instances of the Lord's provision and deliverances out of some very difficult circumstances.

Can you look back on the years of your life and see how He has led and guided? 

What a privilege!

"Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things! And blessed be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen."

Psalm 72:18-19

Unto the upright...

I keep coming back to this verse. 

I find great encouragement here . 

When I am guilty and need His grace and mercy, I have His promise here in His Word: He is gracious. 

When sad news abounds, He is full of compassion. 

Though I have been unrighteous, His work on the Cross paid my debt and He imputes His righteousness to me when I confess and forsake my sins. 

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9

In Him there is no darkness at all. 

When we come to Him, He shines His light. We can either walk in it, 

or choose to reject Him. 

Why would anyone choose eternal darkness and misery

 over eternal light and joy and glory? 

Thank You Lord for Your light, Your grace, 

Your compassions which never fail, and Your righteousness.

Please help me always

 to choose to walk in Your light. 

Trust...

We really can trust Him at all times. He knows the end from the beginning, He is intimately aware of every detail about us and He has prepared good works for us to walk in. 

How amazing it is that the Lord God Almighty invites us to pour out our hearts to Him. He knows how wicked and deceitful our hearts have been and He has cleansed us from sin when we confess and forsake them.

I think this may be another of my favourite verses. Whenever my heart is getting full, I need to remember to pour it out to the Lord. He understands the way I feel (and what is more amazing to me, He loves me anyway) 

He is utterly trustworthy. 

He is my refuge. 

Is He your refuge too??

Sing praise

I'm not aware of any actual statistics but I think most people enjoy hearing the birds sing. I'm sure God loves hearing all His creatures praise Him in joyful song. 

We have so much for which to give Him thanks, He has blessed us so richly in calling us His children.

So let's get singing His praise! 

Those He has redeemed have a very special song to sing!

Return to your rest

I think this may be one of my favourite verses. Time and again I find great comfort in it. It's a great reminder for me that the Lord is so gracious and delights in dealing bountifully with His people.

This is the only way to find true rest. 

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Thank You Lord for dealing bountifully with me!

K...

Obviously we all know we can't physically, literally kiss the Son. There may be lots of other interpretations of this, but I heard years ago that it's a term meaning to worship. Do we who are blessed because we trust in Jesus live our lives in a constant attitude of worship? Or do we so often "forget" or become busy doing too many other things He never intended us to do and relegate worship to Sunday mornings?
In case you need the reminder, here it is.
We have been given the awesome privilege of being His children, and He has richly blessed us in countless ways. He saved us from our sins which would have led us to destruction. He gave us the glorious hope of eternal life with Him, which will be far more wonderful than you or I can imagine. For all this and so much more, He alone is worthy of all praise, glory, honour, and our lives should be completely dedicated to Him for His good pleasure.

(I'm definitely preaching to myself here, I think typing it out helps me process it better.)

God is great.

Well, this verse doesn't need explaining. I believe I should meditate on it more and start praising more too! We're never going to be able to plumb the depths and heights of just how great He is, but for what we do know of Him and all His goodness towards us, we should be eternally grateful. I think in Heaven we'll have a better understanding of all the ways He's been so wonderful to us; we might not even have known about many of them. But let's trust Him without seeing all the evidence.

Delight

Some quotes from George Muller. 

"The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord."

"There were few people, perhaps, more passionately fond of travelling, and seeing fresh places, and new scenes, than myself; but now, since, by the grace of God, I have seen beauty in the Lord Jesus, I have lost my taste for these things."

"At last I saw Christ as my Saviour. I believed in Him and gave myself to Him. The burden rolled from off me, and a great love for Christ filled my soul. That was more than fifty years ago. I loved Jesus Christ then, but I loved Him more the year after, and more the year after that, and more every year since. "


Truly when we see the King in His beauty (Isaiah 33:17) , we should be filled with the greatest delight. The One who is far above all principalities and powers and every name that is named has chosen to reveal Himself to us in such a way as to restore fellowship between God and man through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. What love and grace! What condescension and mercy! What a price He paid for sinners to be forgiven of every thing that offended the Holy God! He made us His children when we used to be enemies! What tremendously blessed privileged people He has made us!

Some important truths to remember.

I was reminded of these verses at Church this morning.

We can trust the Lord. He is in control of all things.

Our lives and times are in His hands. 

He has promised many precious things in His Word and He will always be faithful!

Here's the link to the sermon. It's a good challenging one!

https://youtu.be/NjR21V_3JiM

A few verses from Psalm 18

Thank You Heavenly Father for Your Grace and Mercy!

Aren't you glad that the Lord is so merciful?

Renewed Day by Day. Today's Tozer devotional.

"We should always seek to know Christ better.

"Seek ye the Lord, and his strength: seek His face evermore. Psalm 105:4"
"Are you aware that we have been snared in the coils of a modern spurious logic which insists that if we have found Christ we need no more seek Him. 
 This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. 
The experiential heart-theology of of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.

In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, "O God, show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted! Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain!"

The ways of God

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)

"As for God, His way is perfect..." Psalm 18:30

If you ever find yourself wondering why God allows something unexpected to happen, stop and remember these verses.

No, we're not necessarily going to understand it this side of heaven (and I think we might well have forgotten about it by the time we get there), but it is encouraging to remember that He is faithful and perfect.

Another quote on the subject from "The End of a Coil" by Susan Warner,
"His ways are wonderful and past finding out."