The Characteristics of Being the Good Lord!

“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 love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:1-5)

How many of us could see evidences of God’s miracles? When we see them, we often rejoice. However, when we don’t see any of God’s miracles, we may think that He has forsaken us, or that we are worthless people to become followers of Jesus Christ because of our unrighteous deeds. In other words, some of us may believe that God is very judgemental, that one mistake can change how He views us and our acceptance in Christ and our condemnation go back and forth according to our deeds.

Is it worthless, then, to make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ until the end of the time, since our righteousness cannot even match to God’s? No, but we should rather believe that God has His unconditional and steadfast love over us. Because of His love, “His faithfulness continues through all generations.” If God’s love is so conditional, why then He sent His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to crucify Himself on behalf of us? He surely could have destroyed us in our first failure of becoming righteous as He knows everything. However, He didn’t. Instead, He wanted to restore everything into what it was in the beginning of His creation (Genesis 1-2), so He sacrificially sent Jesus Christ into the world to die for our sins (John 3:16-17).

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)

John Goldingway states that God’s goodness involves His commitment and His truthfulness. These attributes of His tell the reason that He is good. My testimony tells of His goodness, also. I have been pretending to be a follower of Jesus for several months, but I had a strong encounter with God. I sensed that God was prompting me to know Jesus better. Now, I serve the Kingdom of God in different ministries and join Him as a co-worker to bring people to Christ.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel… (Colossians 1:15-23)

Thanksgiving in the Lord!

“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 love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:1-5)

Don’t we thank God when it is only necessary? We thank Him so much when we sense that miracles of God are happening or has happened in our or somebody else’s lives. In other times, we often don’t, especially when we are bored. It is difficult to thank Him all the time. How can we enjoy and get pumped for everyday tasks? As I’m writing this devotional, I am actually bored. This sometimes happens to me. I could find something else to do, to enjoy myself, but I also believe that doing something else other than the will of God is worthless. Since I believe Christian-writing is the will of God for me as the Spirit of God has been prompting me to write, I think it is sometimes necessary to ignore our feelings. For example, you do same thing in work, but you find it bored, would you change your job and your workplace because of your feeling?

How then we could thank God all the time? We should think what is the reason why we are doing what we are doing. I always thank Him for giving me a writing gift as I have a disability in talking. I think my natural gift is giving encouragement as one of my passions is that I want others to live their lives to the fullest. Yesterday, we have looked at God being the Creator of everything, including us (Genesis 1-2). According to James Waltner, one of the things we should be thanking God for is that He is the source of giving us abundant life. Jesus Christ has declared, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:7-10) Jesus being the shepherd and we are the sheep is just a figure of speech. As a shepherd leads His sheep, Jesus wants to lead us through the Spirit of God (John 14:15-27). God has been willing and ready to pour His Spirit into us, but the only question is that are we willing enough, to follow Him? (Luke 11:11-13) 

The Identity of the Lord and Us!

“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 love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:1-5)

Who is God and who are we? Of course, we are humans. Whether we believe in the Living God or not, most of us probably believe in something. If we do not believe in the Living God, we may make a god out of materials, which is what the Israelites commanded Aaron to do because they hated the teaching of Moses. Aaron was supposed to be the helper of Moses, the servant of the Most High God (Exodus 32-33:6). We also could proclaim that one of the historical figures is our god, or that we are gods ourselves.

James Waltner, a commentator on the book of Psalm, states that Psalm 100:3 contributes the reason we worship. “Know that the Lord is God” associates with the word ‘salvation.’ Therefore, second sentence of the verse three provides the answer: “It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” Also, Genesis 1-2 declares that all of us are created by God and we are created to take care of the rest of His creations. Because of these, ‘salvation,’ associating the first sentence of Psalm 100:3 probably makes it more sense. Therefore, believing in Jesus is necessary for every human being as He has proclaimed, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6-7). As Jesus Christ has been exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:3-4) and became a human (John 1:14), He is the bridge between people and God. “For there is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

Gladness Worship!

“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 love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:1-5)

Don’t we love to worship the Lord when everything goes according to our plan because of our grateful tendencies? We start to serve Him with everything we have as well. However, when unfortunate circumstances happen, we often do not worship Him. Instead, some of us may get angry with Him and start to blame Him because we know that God is sovereign and in control of everything. As for me, blaming God never crossed my mind when things are not working out, but I also don’t like to worship Him in those moments as well except through prayer. Instead of being angry at God, I angry with myself. For example, I don’t like myself when I fail to grow patience and gentleness with my mother and start to argue with her. Once, I literally cried. The main reason for this is that I keep on repeating it. I also don’t like myself when I fail to do what I preach through my devotional-writing (Romans 7:7-25). However, I confidently know that I am a God’s child (John 1:9-13) and faith in Jesus Christ makes everything possible (Philippians 4:12-13). Therefore, feelings and emotions can be deceptive.

Although worshipping the Lord could mean praising the Lord, especially when Christian songs are playing, ‘worship’ actually means to ‘show reverence and adoration for’ according to Google. John Goldingay, one commentator on the book of Psalm, states that worshipping and serving go hand in hand. But how can we worship and serve the Lord gladly all day long and forever? To do this effectively, we have to surrender ourselves before the Lord. On Thursday, we looked at having joyous feeling in the Lord and found out that remembering His good deeds can really help us. We actually can rely and mediate on them all day long as “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:3-4).

Joy in the Lord!

“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 love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:1-5)

Don’t we love the feeling of wanting to shout aloud for happiness we are currently in? For example, you get promoted in your workplace or everything goes according to your plan with no mistakes. I believe I had that feeling many times but the last one I remember probably was getting my internship of Windsor Park Baptist Church. I had not expected to get any job in the church except volunteering work until I got a theological qualification from Carey Baptist College. What surprised me more is the role that I got is an E-Prayer Lead as I never thought that I will be working in a prayer ministry. Nevertheless, I am enjoying my internship as it can be one of the resources in my spiritual growth as well.

According to the commentary of Bible Study Tools, Psalm 100:1 states that the whole world would be filled with joyful hearts in the Lord. Does this mean that everyone should always rejoice in the Lord? How then people should react when there are morning and grieving circumstances in the world? Several Psalms declare that we should always remember and meditate on the deeds of the Lord. One illustration of this is in Psalm 77:

‘“Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”’ (vv. 7-12)