Devotion
Make a joyful noise to the King of all gods
David Jacobs
As a musician, it always brings me great pleasure to be able share my musical gift with others. The one place I get to do that more than any other, besides singing in the shower, is at church. In the comfortable confines of the church is one of the few places I get to sing, play the piano, and play the violin for an audience of interested listeners. How joyful is the sound of heavenly music, and how joyful it is to be able to share this music with fellow Christians in a house of worship!
The Old Testament is filled with stories that may make God seem serious, vengeful, and even scary. Never forget how much God loves you! So much so that he sent His only son to die so that we may experience life eternal. Between the lines of thousands of verses within the Bible, one may find the joy and exultation of celebrating the name of the Lord. God is not spiteful and full of vengeance! He is as a Father unto us, endowing us with the gift of light, love, and even laughter. Perhaps no figure in the Bible is a better example of the joyful praise that can and should be shared with others and our Lord than King David. The Psalms particularly details the joyous relationship we have with God, recommending we make a joyful noise to the Lord. My joyful noise might be different from yours, but the Lord does not judge us on our musical abilities! Anyone can lift up their voice and sing – even my tone deaf mother – but singing is not the only way to make a joyful noise celebrating our love for God. Find yours, and lift it up in praise!
Prayer
When have you felt at your most 'joyous'? What does your joyful noise sound like?
Morning Prayer
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
Inspiration
To reject the truths taught in God's Word, spoken by his prophets and apostles and by Jesus Christ his Son, is a grave offense. In the days when Hebrews was written, there were still true prophets in the Church, speaking from God. Today, we have his written Word as our "prophet. " If a preacher preaches truly according to the Book, we are in a grave sin if we reject it.
Prayer
Help me, O Lord, to discern when your Word is being taught correctly and when it is not. Teach me to embrace your truths and love them. Help me to walk in them and meditate on them. Let me not sin in rejecting the plain teachings of the Bible. Amen.
Night Prayer
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Inspiration
Sin rules our lives until we accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. When we invite Him into our lives, our old sinful heart dies, and God creates within us a new one, where sin no longer rules our life; God does! Our thoughts and actions begin to change because we no longer desire a sinful lifestyle. We joyfully devote our lives to serving Him and inviting others to understand His promise of salvation.
Prayer
Dear Lord, we are sinners born again and recreated to live according to Your will. We are grateful for Your love and the peace we experience by abolishing our old sinful self. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Devotion
Satan Has Been Defeated
Frances Taylor
Salvation and power have come with Christ and Satan has been defeated. Sin and death have been conquered by the actions of one man, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, both human and divine who came into the world to bring the Good News of salvation by living, dying and rising for us. As Christians we claim to believe this but our actions sometimes deny it. Unfortunately, people seem to resurrect Satan all the time. We allow him to lead us away from God, forgetting the way to the Father that is love, and giving in to Satan's path of hatred, anger, pride, lust, chaos and destruction.
Satan, of course, doesn't present these as bad things, he makes them seem attractive. He presents sin as goods to be desired, as things to make us happy or give us pleasure. It can be hard to stay on the path that leads to God when the world seems to be crowding us and pushing us off of it. How easy it is to forget the sacrifice that bought our freedom! Which of us ...