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Sunday 4 August 2013

Psalm 149 - A Psalm of Praise for God's People

This is another psalm of praise, but is directed at how God's people should praise Him.
The starting point is, as always, simple: Praise the Lord. Then His faithful people are called to sing a new song. The Lord makes our lives different, He brings salvation, restoration, regeneration. He makes our lives new.
We have a personal relationship with the Lord, so we should rejoice in Him. And this worship is to be exuberant. And why is it to be so? It is because the Lord takes delight in His people. Worship is actually a two way process. We worship Him, He delights in us.
Moreover He crowns the humble with victory. Remember Jesus said "the meek will inherit the earth". The world teaches us that it is the proud and boastful who will "inherit the earth". This is not true. We are to rejoice in this honour and sing for joy. 
The praise of God is to be on our mouths and a double-edged sword in our hands, the latter is the word of God. With this we are to execute judgement upon the world. Now this concept does not sit easy with us, but it is vital that we get a hold of it. It is definitely not a call for us to use violence of any sort, but we do bring judgement upon the world. We do so by the quality of our lives and by the words that we preach. As Paul says, for some we will be the aroma of life, that is for those who repent and turn to Christ, but to others we will be the stench of death. In the current debates on sexual morality we need to remember that we are here to bring God's word, to present His ways, not to acquiesce to the ways of the world.

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