GOD DELIGHTS IN US

Psalm 147 NLT

1 Praise the Lord!

How good to sing praises to our God!

How delightful and how fitting!

3 He heals the brokenhearted

and bandages their wounds.

4 He counts the stars

and calls them all by name.

5 How great is our Lord! His power is absolute!

His understanding is beyond comprehension!

11 …the Lord’s delight is in those who fear him,

those who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Whether you’ve had a good week or a bad one, I hope there’s something you can sing praises to the Lord for today. If we’ve had a tough time it’s so helpful to read the Psalms because they put into words what we’d love to be able to say but can’t seem to find the words sometimes.😊

Whoever wrote this psalm though, really managed to go beyond themselves, to grasp something of the vastness and greatness of our God. He looks up to the starry heavens and thinks about them for a while but then he brings it close to home and he reminds us of how God delights in those who reverence Him and put their hope in His unfailing love. How encouraging that we have something so wonderful to latch our hope onto!😊

So let’s join with the psalmist today and go beyond ourselves for a little while, think about how He’s so immensely powerful, that He not only knows the name of the stars but He knows your name and mine as well. 

Imagine that for a minute. God knows your name and He has it engraved on the palm of His mighty hand and whether you feel uplifted or downcast He wants you to know He’s delighted with you. How lovely that is and it’s all because of Jesus and all He’s done for us.😊

Thank You Lord. We give You all the praise and glory today. In Jesus name. Amen.

Photo: Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

PEACE ON THE INSIDE

John 16:33 NIV “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Whether we live alone or with others, and it’s one of those days when the washing machine has just gone down, or we have children crying, the dog is barking and someone wants to know where their keys have gone, we all need peace in the turmoil!

Yesterday I was thanking the Lord for His peace, and I had the thought that because we are ‘in’ Jesus and He is in us, then we must be ‘in’ His peace all the time whether we realise it or not! 

The trouble is we forget that His peace is ours already! 1 Corinthians 6:17 NIV But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Everything Jesus is, and has, is already in our spirit because we are one spirit with Him, and it includes His peace! It’s worth stopping and thinking about that for a minute.

Sometimes we look for peace in our surroundings and they can help us to be peaceful, but Jesus says we can be at peace, even in the harassment of the day going on around us, if we’ll just remember we have the peace of God inside us for us to tap in to!😊

Some people are very peaceful people by nature and they remain unruffled by circumstances but I know I tend to get in a tizzy very quickly, when I should know better! That’s probably why God reminded me that because the Lord is in us, around us, under us and over us then so is His peace inside, around, under and over us! If God is with us, and He is, then so is His peace!😊

So this is a little reminder the next time we find ourselves losing our peace and want to go into panic mode, to just stop for a moment, take a breath, draw on the Prince of Peace and let Him calm us down. Remember He’s right there with us and the Holy Spirit is there to show us what to do and how to overcome whatever has come up. We can deliberately draw on His peace and thank Him for it. Amen.

Have a blessed and ‘peaceful’ weekend.x😊