Four Things that I WILL do today!

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it! I hope you will as well. I am excited about today! My oldest daughter and her husband begin their time of training and ministry in Washington, D.C. In fact, as I write this blog they are arriving at the offices of the National Community Church where Mark Batterson is the lead pastor. What an opportunity for them. Mark Batterson is a young pastor, but is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors and I am honored that Glenda and Brad will be on staff with him. What a learning experience this will be. Please pray for them today as they are very nervous. I know they will do GREAT.

Every morning we have pastoral prayer in the sanctuary. This morning as I walked into the church building, I could just sense God's presence in an awesome way. I knew He was about to speak something into my Spirit. I opened my Bible for today's reading. In addition to reading through the Bible this year, I read a Psalm and Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month. For instance, today is September 9^th, so I read Psalm 9 and Proverbs 9. You should try doing this; it is like taking a spiritual vitamin to supplement your regular study and reading.

Anyway, as I opened up Psalm 9, God immediately challenged me with something in the first two verses of the chapter. I would like to share with you today, "Four things that I WILL do today!"

Psalm 9:1-2 I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. (2) I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

#1 I WILL give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart!

I have so much to be thankful for, but for some reason I find myself focusing on my problems instead of thanking God for His blessings and His faithfulness. When I focus on my problems and not on God, I am allowing worry to dominate my life. Listen to what Paul said concerning thanksgiving:

Philippians 4:4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (5) Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; (6) do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (7) And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in EVERYTHING by prayer, and supplication…WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made know to God. Then, the peace of God will overwhelm my life. Thanksgiving and peace go hand and hand. If I do not learn to thank God with my whole heart, then I will never experience the fullness of God's peace in my life. So TODAY, I have already made up my mind that I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. Not half-heartedly, not sleepily, or because I have to…but because God is good and has blessed my life with good things. "Thank you Jesus for your hand upon me and your blessings that you have poured out upon me!"

#2 I WILL recount all of your wonderful deeds!

Periodically, in political elections the vote is so close that they call for a RECOUNT of the votes. That means they stop everything else they were doing and take the time to count again. David says in our text this morning that he would RECOUNT all of God's wonderful deeds. I believe that would be a good thing for me to do as well. I have stopped whatever else I was doing today so that I can recount God's blessings in my life. I would like to put them in an acrostic:

Redemption! I am so glad that Jesus redeemed me from the curse of the law. I was on my way to hell, but Jesus saved me!

Eternity! I am glad that this world is not my home, I am only passing through. When you get discouraged, stop and RECOUNT the fact that if you have made Jesus your Savior and Lord, you will spend eternity with Him! That is shouting ground!

Church family! I am blessed to pastor the greatest church in the world. What a wonderful group of people that show the love, light and life of Jesus to their world and areas of influence.

Outstanding health of my family! I am so blessed that my family is healthy. I am healthy. I never want to take that for granted.

USA! I am proud to be an American and to live in the greatest nation in the world. I am so thankful for the freedoms that we have.

Necessities of life! I have a home, cars, clothes, plenty of food and water, an awesome family and great friends. I am truly blessed!

The Holy Spirit! He nudges me and directs me attempting to bring out the character of Christ through the Fruit of the Spirit. I have taken Him for granted at times, and I truly repent of that.

Why don't you take a moment to RECOUNT all of the wonderful deeds of God in your life! As the song goes, "Count your blessings, name the one by one, and it may surprise you what the Lord has done."

#3 I WILL be glad and exult in you!

The word glad in the Hebrew here means a perpetual state of rejoicing and to brighten up. The word exult means to jump for joy, to be jubilant! You put these two words together and David is saying, "I will stay in a perpetual state of rejoicing that will brighten up all of those I come in contact with. I will be jubilant and jump for joy because of God's goodness!" David says I WILL be glad and exult the Lord. So today I CHOOSE to stay in a perpetual state of rejoicing. Being glad really is a choice. Listen to Psalm 9:2 in the Message version of the Bible:

Psalm 9:2 I'm whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I'm singing your song, High God. This is awesome isn't it? Make up your mind to be glad and exult the Lord today.

#4 I WILL sing praise to your name, O Most High

Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Every day I will sing praises to the Lord! I will praise the name of Jesus! There are seven Hebrews names for praise and each gives us a different aspect of praise. Please notice these differences below:

* Hallal: "to laud, boast, rave, to celebrate" - It is used approximately one hundred times in the Old Tes tament.

* Yadah: "to worship with extended hands, to throw out the hands" - It is used over ninety times in the Old Testament. (Yad means "hand.")

* Barak: "to bless, to declare God the origin of power for success, prosperity, and fertility" - It is used approximately seventy times in the Old Testament as praise to God.

* Tehillah: "to sing or laud" - It is derived from hallal and is generally accepted to mean "the singing of hallals." It is used over fifty times in the Old Testament.

* Zamar: "to pluck the strings of an instrument, to praise with song" - It is used almost exclusively in the Psalms and occurs approximately forty times in the Old Testament.

* Todah: "to extend the hands in thanksgiving, a thank-offering" - It is used only a few times when translated "praise" but occurs many other times in connection with thanksgiving.

* Shabach: "to commend, address in a loud tone, to shout" - This is the exclamatory form of praise in a special sense and is found only about seven times in the Old Testament.

My prayer for you today is that you will make up your mind to do these four things every single day! I'm going to give it a shot, how about you? Blessings.

Pastor Rusty