Thankful, Day Sixty-One

Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!

Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

Know that the Lord, He is God;

It is He who has made us and not we ourselves;

We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

For the Lord is good;

His mercy is everlasting,

And His truth endures to all generations.

Psalm 100, NKJV

Shout joyfully! Serve with gladness! Come with singing! I love this Psalm!

And I also love its next command to me, its next instruction for life and for godliness. KNOW! Know that He is God...as opposed to thinking there are others, or maybe even that you are Him. Know that He alone is God and that there is no other. Know that He is God, and that you're not. Know that He is God, and that He is sovereign, supreme, eternal, unchanging, all-powerful, ever present, all-knowing and compassionate without limit.

Know that He has made us. We are not an accident. We are not the current evolutionary descendants of two amino acids that merged in the primordial soup. We are not the offspring of monkeys born without tails. And neither are we self-made. We may have earned degrees and climbed corporate ladders. We may have accomplishments, and made a name for ourselves. We may have pulled on our own bootstraps and stood up tall. But we need to understand that He is the One who is ultimately responsible for our existence. He formed us with His own hands. In the wombs of our mothers, He shaped us and called us by name. He put those gifts and talents within us. He gave us dreams and desires. He is my maker, and He knows my name!

Know that we are His. We are His people, and we are His sheep. We belong to Him. He can do with us whatever He wants, but He has promised to bless us, to keep us, to guard and guide us. He has promised to take care of us in every way imaginable, and has covenanted Himself to us for salvation and eternal life. In His care, I am ultimately safe and triumphantly victorious. And there is nowhere else that I'd rather be. There is nothing else I'd rather serve. I'm happy to belong to God.

Thank you Lord, for your sufficient grace, your mercy that is new every day, your unfailing compassion, and your limitless love. All of those things I need in great amounts at any given moment of the day, and thank you that they never run out.

Thank you Lord, for your hand on my life, working in my life, moving around my life, forming, shaping, renovating and restoring. Thank you for taking everything about my existence and shaping it to your will, working all things out for my good and for your glory.

Thank you Lord, for your voice that speaks clearly in many different ways. Thank you for your written Word. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Thank you for the laws that are written on tablets of flesh within me, and for the Word that I have hidden in my heart. Thank you for the gifts of others, who speak to me even when they don't know they are talking to anyone but themselves. And thank you for your direct and spoken Word that I alone can hear. When all these voices are saying the same thing, I know I'm hearing from you.

Thanks!