At around this time I am supposed to be laying out the words to share to those who show up in church in, oh, a little less than 2 hours from now. But it’s also been a while since I just went ahead and unloaded what was in my heart, and in my head. So I’m doing that now.
As usual, we praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
We praise Him, and encourage all creatures here ‘below’, all that exists in this reality.
We praise Him, not crying out to all within this world, but to all above: Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
Amen. Indeed, our God is worthy of all praise – and we recognize Him, not merely for the blessings we receive from Him, but for the fact and truth that it ALL comes from Him. The blessings on their own are not worth anything at all if we do not understand where they came from – and when we DO realize, recognize and ultimately appreciate that they come from no less than the Creator of all things above and below, all things seen and unseen, well, that just leads us to praise Him.
It’s not the blessings, but who they come from, that matters. So great is the overflow of praise that is borne and flows from our hearts, that we not only exhort His praise from ourselves, but as the rest of the song goes, we encourage all of heaven and earth to join us in the chorus – to praise Him.
And did you notice? We praised ‘God’ in the first line… but as we sing for the earth and the heavens to praise Him, we end with not merely praising ‘God’, but ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost’ – this just tells me that the more we praise Him, the deeper we go into knowing more about Him… and the more we know, the more we praise, because we can praise God as our Father, and compose entire songs recognizing this truth. It’s the same for praising Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and finally, when we praise God as Holy Spirit.
We can go even further by, say, praising God as a Father, because of Christ and the Holy Spirit – After all, it’s because of the finished work of Christ that we have the Holy Spirit upon us, and it’s because we have the Holy Spirit that we are able to call God our Abba, Father. So it’s one thing to praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as individuals, but it’s also another great reason for us to praise when we see Father, Son, AND Holy Spirit as ONE God.
And for me right now, I’m just thankful to see how, through God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – we see His complete goodness. We don’t merely have a God who has secured our past, and is with us in the present, but we also have a God who, through Christ, has guaranteed that all His promises, even those pertaining to the future, are also ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’… I’m saying that because we have a complete God, so we have a complete salvation in and through Him.
In fact, it goes beyond merely being complete – it is more than absolute, but it is eternal. We don’t merely have a complete life, but an everlasting life through Christ. We aren’t merely loved with a complete love, but an everlasting love, by God, who by the Holy Spirit we call our Father.
I praise Him today, recognizing my incompleteness, recognizing my flaws, and the many more things that need work in my own personal life – in my body, my mind, my soul and my spirit, in my finances and my relationships, in my growth; So many things in my past need resolution, so many things in my future need guarantees, and so many things in my present; well, so much needs work, so much needs fixing.
I praise Him today, in spite of all my flaws, taking the promise in His word:
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10:14
In other words, our complete and everlasting God has guaranteed, through Christ’s offering, that our perfection is actually just as complete and everlasting, EVEN in these times that I recognize how I find myself being caught wanting in this finite reality. I welcome sanctification (or, the correction of my entire being) FROM perfection, resting from trying to sanctify myself FOR perfection.
For us to say that we have been perfected, now that I think of it, is a subtle tribute to Christ, who HIMSELF is our perfection. We could not come anywhere near being sanctified, much less being perfect, on our own. No, it’s through Christ who perfected us that we also welcome sanctification – also from and through no other but Christ.
This gives me comfort in the moment, especially considering that this week has been bout after bout away from all that I call my comfort zone. It’s Christ who is my Comfort.
And for that, again I sing today:
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
Amen. Thank You, God. Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God bless us all.
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#Reflections #Revelations #Doxology #Praise #Worship #Perfection #Sanctification #Salvation #BenefitsOfSalvation #PracticalChristianity #Comfort #GodOurFather #JesusChrist #HolySpirit #Bible
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