Praise

God Has Given You a Song to Sing

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The Angels had a song

two silver angel figurines

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And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:13-14

The Shepherds Had a song

Luke 2:20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

photo of woman holding lamb

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Mary Had a Song

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,   and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant  For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. Luke 1:46-49

Kyla as Mary 2

 

Some of us sing soprano like the angels with every hearing everyone note. Some of us sing alto and with  in  middle notes like the shepherds. Not everyone appreciates our harmonies but whey hold the melodies together. Some of us have bass notes; like Mary who was thankful that God regarded her low estate. But no matter what part we are given in God’s heavenly choir he has assigned each of us our place and He is waiting for us to sound the next note as together we are singing His song!

 

This Little Salt of Mine

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You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. Matthew 5:14 ESV

Being the salt of the earth gets a lot less attention than being the light of the world. After all when was the last time you heard anyone singing, “This little salt of mine!”? When people think about the salt of the earth they vaguely picture plain and ordinary folks. On the other hand, when my mother used to say that sailors were using “salty language”; she meant something quite different. Then what exactly is there about salt that Jesus is urging us to understand?

It may help to remember that salt comes up from mines deep in the earth. Its uniqueness is that it is totally different from the soil around it. In the same way, when we became Christians God dug us up by His grace and brought to the surface for a special purpose. His grace has transformed us and so He asks us to let that grace flow through us to transform our own little part of the world. Every day He gives us the opportunity to demonstrate the difference that grace has made in our lives; not to try to fit in and become like everyone else. When Jesus prayed that we would be in the world, but not of it He was asking that His grace would flavor everything and everyone around us. We are on earth for such a short time, so why don’t we start singing, “This little salt of mine; I’m going to shake it out!”

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Beginning Our Day With Worship

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Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”  He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. John 9:37-38 ESV

Discipleship begins by faith but it will only grow as we worship. One pitfall in our churches today is that we connect worship in our minds to a hushed mood, a moment in the worship team’s performance and a time to settle back into our comfortable seats. But in the Bible we see Moses worshiped bare foot in the desert by a burning bush. We see Elijah worshiping God at a stone altar even when the crowd was loving the 400 man worship team at the 1st church of Baal. David worshiped while he watched sheep and Daniel worshiped with only an audience of lions. All of these people were worshiping because they had met an awesome God and they wanted Him to get all the glory, no matter what their circumstances.

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Dial it forward to when Jesus met a blind man in John chapter nine. First, while the disciples were debating why he was blind, Jesus healed him. Later when he was rejected by the local religious leaders, Jesus became His friend. Last of all, when Jesus showed the man who He really was he began to worship. Before we can walk down the road with Jesus we must learn what it means to truly worship Him. No ministry can be more important, no goal more vital, no relationship too precious to stand in the way of our worship. When we see that He is so worthy of all we have to give and begin to uncover the truth of who He really is; what else can we do but worship?