“We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think, while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory.
Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, You will honour and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away? So, for God to say, Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.”
—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
(HT: OfFirstImportance)
Showing posts with label Obedience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obedience. Show all posts
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
To Shout or Not To Shout?
A couple of days ago I was reading Psalm 32 during my time with the Lord. While reading it I came across verse 11, which is the last verse in chapter 32. There I read a few commands. One, 'to be glad in the Lord'. Two, along with being glad we are to 'rejoice' in the Lord. And three, 'shout for joy'.
Now that jogged my memory, because a year ago I preached Psalm 100 and in that Psalm we are also commanded to 'shout joyfully to the Lord'. After doing a word study on 'shout' in Psalm 100, I learned that the Hebrew word for shout is 'ruwa' which means to 'cry out' or 'to give a war-cry of victory'.
Having never really 'shouted' in this way, and to be honest, I was feeling a little weird teaching this, but I knew I had to teach what Psalm 100 was saying. But unfortunately it still remains unpracticed in my life.
Well today I came across a post by Mark Altrogge at his blog The Blazing Center, where he describes in one of his posts, his process of obeying this one command from the Lord. I found it interesting and thought you might as well.
I wonder....do you shout for joy in this way? Is this a normal practice for you in your time alone with God? In your corporate worship with your church?
Mark writes,
"I’m not a particularly emotional person. At football games I’ve never shouted and high-fived. I never danced or moshed or sang along or held up my lighter at concerts. And I was raised in a church in which the most expressive thing we did in worship was exchange the sign of peace with our neighbor - my brother and I would give each other a sideways glance and a smirk, then give each other the peace sign.
When Jesus saved me, I became convinced from preaching and the Word that God desires expressive worship. But for me to raise my hands or shout to God or sing with gusto was like telling me to do an Irish step dance at an opera."
You can read the rest by clicking here!
Now that jogged my memory, because a year ago I preached Psalm 100 and in that Psalm we are also commanded to 'shout joyfully to the Lord'. After doing a word study on 'shout' in Psalm 100, I learned that the Hebrew word for shout is 'ruwa' which means to 'cry out' or 'to give a war-cry of victory'.
Having never really 'shouted' in this way, and to be honest, I was feeling a little weird teaching this, but I knew I had to teach what Psalm 100 was saying. But unfortunately it still remains unpracticed in my life.
Well today I came across a post by Mark Altrogge at his blog The Blazing Center, where he describes in one of his posts, his process of obeying this one command from the Lord. I found it interesting and thought you might as well.
I wonder....do you shout for joy in this way? Is this a normal practice for you in your time alone with God? In your corporate worship with your church?
Mark writes,
"I’m not a particularly emotional person. At football games I’ve never shouted and high-fived. I never danced or moshed or sang along or held up my lighter at concerts. And I was raised in a church in which the most expressive thing we did in worship was exchange the sign of peace with our neighbor - my brother and I would give each other a sideways glance and a smirk, then give each other the peace sign.
When Jesus saved me, I became convinced from preaching and the Word that God desires expressive worship. But for me to raise my hands or shout to God or sing with gusto was like telling me to do an Irish step dance at an opera."
You can read the rest by clicking here!
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