Category Archives: Praise

God is True

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Attain.  Remain.  Send honor to the Holy One.

He is true and of excellent wisdom, even to the fullness of the term.

He has sent His Grace abroad; filling all manner of trees of men.

He has set the bounds, perfectly set and firmly.

One will reach to the heavens.  Another is but like a shrub.

The Trees in His Holy Garden of Grace abound.  They are trimmed by the Holy Will of the Living God.

Let a man accept his place.  Yet let him reach toward what is higher.

What tree seeks to grow toward its roots?  Does it not grow to its fullness toward the Sun?

Let a man know his place.  Yet let him give honor to what is full.

Aspire!  Greatly aspire to what is best.

Humility is found in the knowledge of restriction.

The proud seek what they cannot have.  But the humble see, with clear vision, what is theirs to own.

God alone is true, faultless, power beyond the perfected.

He is sovereign, and thrice Holy.

By His Holy Grace we live.  By His Holy Wisdom we own.  By His boundless strength we serve; each in his proper place.

Attain!  Retain!  Send Honor to the Holy One, the Living God and His Holy Word The Christ.

Salvation is a richly variegated garden of souls.

May His Holy Will be done forever!

Amen.

Within the Tabernacle

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In this city of holy testing; this town of temptation, there is a tabernacle of God.  This is a place where the children of God; brothers and sisters alike in soul, come to fellowship in what is holy and good.

This tabernacle is placed; built by the Holy Lord Himself, upon the very street where men pass by.  These men, who pass by, go to do their doings; to yearn and follow after the things of sin.

Their passing is a temptation; they pass by without consideration of what lay beyond the Holy door.

Let their passing escape my eyes.  Do not let the sound of their feet reach my ears.  Restrain my eyes from the windows, let them be stained with the exquisite blood of my Lord.

 

Restrain me, O’ Lord of Life!  Place my back to the door.  Present Your Holiness to me.  I will be overcome with awe.  My knees will buckle and I will bow with a sudden falling.

You alone are life.  Those who pass by are of the land of death.  Dress me in Hope, and I will live in the land of the living.

Let the Gold of your Holy Temple instruct my desire.  Let me crave the fullness you have promised.

 

I speak many words before you.  But they are not many because I doubt you hear me.  They are many as I encounter your Holy Law.

I am caused to reach up with vigor.  Zeal consumes me.  Holy zeal provides a hurricane of words.

I am not void, for I am here in your Holy Place.  But hunger, thirst and ceaseless praise attends my heart.

By Your Holy Grace I seek your precious face.  By Your Holy Grace I reach to you.

 

“My Grace is sufficient for you.  For in your weakness my strength is made perfect.”

Then, by all means, let your Holy Wisdom know the limit.  Yet I will crave Your Holy Way.

 

You are God.  You are the Living God.  You are established from ages past, even to forever.  You will never cease, yet I must die to join you where you are.

May Your Holy Will be done forever.  For You alone are Good and True.

By the Holy and complete Sacrifice of Your Holy Son, I speak these things from within the tabernacle You yourself have built.  You have done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

 

Amen, Amen, and Amen!

Our Singular Purpose

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“From the rising of the Sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.” (Psalm 113: 3)

In good times and in bad.  In sickness and in health.  Through riches and poverty.  Through gain and loss.  Till death are we united, The name of the Lord is to be praised.

He has set his way unmovable, he has established from Ancient of Days.  The creatures who were first, and the creatures who are last will encounter the same from the Living God.

There are the multitude who will praise Him; before, now and forever.  To join with them is the promise of the righteous; those who trust in the word of the Lord to the doing of it.

The rebellious will waste away and be no more.  But the living God, and all that is holy, will stand forever.  Praise to the living God in Christ Jesus His Holy Son will remain.  But the wicked will be confounded and lost in their terror.

Let all rise up against me, I will give praise to the Sovereign God through His Holy and Beautiful Son Christ Jesus.

You will do what you do by compulsion, you who despise what is holy.  The taller the Lord’s people stand, the more venomous the hatred of those who hate the Lord.  This also is unmovable in this place of testing.  Why then should we shrink and seek a corner in which we must hide?

Is the Lord hidden in his glorious palace?  Did the Christ of God shirk his calling?  Did he not submit to the Holy will of the Holy One and live?

Is the testimony of the righteous brought to us because they ran to hide from the onslaught of wicked desire?  Have they not lived faithfully for the glory of the Lord who has purchased them and for the testimony which is able to give us strength to testify now?

What will be the saying of those who come after us?  Will they say, “Capitulation has occurred.  The righteous obedience to the living God has been spurned by those who lived that day.”

If there are three who will praise the Lord, regardless their situation, then by all means let it come to be with great exaltation together!  You will not venture to service without me, oh holy brother.  And we will arrive in praise together.

Let our lips praise His name.  Let strength greater than Sampson’s come up on our souls to control the sinful nature.  In word and in deed, let our testimony blaze among men.  Let us fan into flame, blazing flame, the gift of faith and the gift of obedience.  Let a desire to praise Him consume us with holy zeal.

Then a testimony will be written for those who come after.  By this the Lord will provide, even as he has provided for us.  We have an obligation to him.  And in the meeting of this obligation we will have passed down what is ours to give.  We will pass down what is marked indelibly, “GOOD” .

May the name of the Lord be praised for ever!  He is righteous and true, faultless in all his judgment!  Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty; who was, and is, and is to come!

His appearing blazing fire of righteousness will consume his enemies.  And those who put their trust in the holy Son of God will stand firm forever.

Amen!

Limited Perfection

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Psalm 119 is an absolutely astounding and beautiful writing.  It is greatly encouraging if you can find pieces in your life that match what is written.

Verse 96 says this: “To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.”  What a wonderfully intriguing passage.

I had always equated perfection with the law of God.  But the passage compares God’s creatures to God himself.

If any creature will attain the perfection required of him, he will find the limit of expectation.  But God’s ways include all His creatures and all his limits of expectations.  Eternity is His!

In this I take great heart.  I am not expected to be God.  I am not even expected to be my next door neighbor.  I am only expected to be the man God intends me to be.

Let us be true.  His expectations of a man are far too high for the man to reach alone.  No matter how he tries, the man will fail miserably.

But here we speak of the fullness of the gospel.  For those who become perfected are given new clothes to wear.  They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and so they are counted worthy.

The passage is release from anxiety.  God is sufficient for all.  And in truth, he asks very little of any of his creatures.

Let us attain to prayer.  Let us ask the Lord to wash us and make us perfect; according to his perfectly wise wisdom toward each one of us.

So much spawn from so few words.  Thus is the richly variegated wisdom of God.  And his ability to sustain all things through His Holy son Christ Jesus.

Metamorphosis

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From dirt to white glory

Once I was brown with the filth of my own life.  Curled in on myself, I had no hope of promise.

But God has come, and now majestic has appeared.  He has done this and it is marvelous in my eyes.

God is First!

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I wake in a rest stop.  With stuttering bones I sit in the driver’s seat.  The promise of sunrise already lights my place.  And my eyes drink what is placed before me.

Shadows of colorless shapes fill my eyes.  But a shadow of blazing intensity fills my soul.  The first will pass to history as the brilliant Sun rises to my left.  The second demands my full attention, for it is God who will be first.

The shadows are there; statues of men lay between the rising Son and my eyes.  The choice is brilliantly clear.  “To prayer with me!  These things of men put God last.  But I must put Him first.”

A love for He is from eternity clears the fog from my mind.  His Holiness appears as a jarring jolt.  And the folly of men recedes.

What love has man for this place of prayer?  He testifies to himself by the statues he has placed in this rest stop, and absence of praise for God who has given him hands.

Along the highway, to arrive at this place, I saw no sign of thanks to God.  I saw only small crosses to glorify the death of a man.  A rich crop of signs has grown up to direct the body.  But where are the signs for God?

There should have been a sign that said, “Praise be to God in His mercy!  We give thanks to you, O’ Holy One, for allowing us to build this highway.”  But there will be no such sign to find.

Man restrains his praise for God, yet elevates himself.  I too am man, and so I confess.  But confession is only the beginning.  Where is the choice within me to elevate God to first?  It must be found, and quickly!  Or prayer will be but words.

Open my eyes O’ Holy One.  Have mercy on this fool!  I see with clarity how all men have treated you as trash; how they relegate you as last.  But you have made me stand in a place where such lies blatantly reek of the pride of man.  If you are not first then I am last forever.

You are of eternity, and your Glory has always been so.  A countless host will proclaim in your favor.  They will turn their face from any man who promotes himself.  So they take their stance.  They have been proven and so they will remain.  Yet man considers that he would be acceptable among their ranks.

The great cloud of witnesses sing, “Holy praise to the Sovereign God.  And to his Holy Son!  For salvation belongs to God alone and to the Lamb.”

This song is to be sung forever.  And the great cloud of witnesses readily agreeds.  All the while man promotes himself.  And refuses a place for His Holy Name in this place of testing. 

What, indeed, is to be the outcome of the pride of men?  It is not what they expect.  For God’s judgment has stood, it will stand, and it will remain forever;  God is first!

Amen, amen, amen!