Thankful, Day Seventy-Seven

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

I'm glad to be serving the Lord this morning, and not someone or something else.

Some people serve themselves, and live only for themselves. They do whatever they want to do and think themselves happy for it. Perhaps they are, perhaps they will be, for a while. They work for money to spend on their own appetites, trying to buy their pleasure, their satisfaction, their fulfillment. They climb the ladder of life with no regard for anything except self-exaltation. They accumulate accolades and possessions, earn degrees and reputations, cultivate an image by which they want to be known. They primp and groom and fuss and worry over a body that will one day be ravaged by time. But serving one's own self ends up as a very lonely prospect, because you have served nothing greater than yourself.

Some people serve other gods, false deities that cannot see nor hear, reach out or move. They worship imaginations at best, demons at worst, who never help nor aid. They put their trust in gods that must be bribed or bought off, who demand more and more while giving less than nothing. Every religion in the world save one is about banging your head against the wall of the world trying to achieve some standard of personal goodness in order to please your concept of god so that he will in turn let you have whatever it is that your trying to earn.

Others serve the devil, selling their souls for what can never satisfy. They give in to temptation and enticement, to a taste of bread, a sense of pride, or the draw of lust and greed. They listen to the voices inside their heads, and are driven mad by them. Their minds are darkened, their souls tortured, the crazed confusion of having the devil in control a constant chaotic torment.

And in the end, all of these offer only death...and after that? Someone has pointed out that your headstone contains two dates with a dash in between--the date of your birth, the date of your death, and the life you lived from the first to the last. How you spend your dash will determine your fate and eternal destiny; did you serve the only true God who can save you from yourself, the lies of the world, and the devil? Or did you choose to go another way?

The Bible says there is a way that seems right unto man, but its way is the way of death.

The Bible says we need to find the way of God, and walk in it.

The Bible says there is a straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life; but a broad path that leads to destruction.

The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.

And the thing that determines where we stand on that day, and in what condition, is not what we've done, but what we believed--Whom we served. There is only one way to get to God, and that is through Jesus Christ. No one comes to the Father except through Him; and there is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved.

Other people can make the choice to serve whatever; I am glad to be serving the LORD this morning!

Thank you Lord for faith today, for the ability to believe, and reason to trust. You've never let me down or led me astray; I know you won't start today.

Thank you Lord for hope today, for the power to look beyond what we see and hear in the present to what you have promised for our future. Many are your great and precious promises, O Lord, and I believe every one of them.

Thank you Lord for love today, love that casts out all fear; love that covers a multitude of sin; and love that never, ever fails. When we love you and love each other, the world is right. And that is what I do this morning.

Thank you Lord, for faith, hope and love, for these three remain. But the greatest of these is love.