FIRST AND LAST

Isaiah 48:12-13 NLT “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, Israel my chosen one! I alone am God, the First and the Last. It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand that spread out the heavens above. When I call out the stars, they all appear in order.”

Don’t you just get a sense of God’s power from these verses? Our God is the First and the Last! He is the Alpha and Omega but I felt the Lord was asking if He is the First and Last in our lives? 

Is He first in the morning? Is He the last at the end of the day before we go to sleep? Or do we rush into the morning and become so distracted and busy we forget to include Him in all we do, in the bits in between, so that by night time we suddenly realise we might have left Him out of some things?

When we read how He is so powerful He laid the very foundations of the world, how He calls out the stars at night, we are being reassured that we don’t need to try to run our own lives because He’s more than able to deal with all our issues! Nothing is too hard for our God!

If God can set stars into space, how much more can He can also set things into place in our lives!😊 (Psalm 8:3-4) There is no mistake He can’t forgive, no mountain so high He can’t help us conquer it, no giant so huge He can’t equip us to bring it crashing down.

v.17 …I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. God is saying if we’ll give Him the first and the last word in all our decisions then He can protect us from wrong choices and show us what to do.😊 

So let’s be encouraged to remember to make God First and Last and include Him in everything we do this coming week.😊 Amen.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

GREATNESS BEYOND MEASURE

Psalm 145:1-33 NLT

 I will exalt you, my God and King,

and praise your name forever and ever.

2 I will praise you every day;

yes, I will praise you forever.

3 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!

No one can measure his greatness.

7 Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness;

they will sing with joy about your righteousness.

8 The Lord is merciful and compassionate,

slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

9 The Lord is good to everyone.

He showers compassion on all his creation.

Have you ever had a hero figure that you wanted to shout about? Some people make much of celebrities but there has never been anyone who can be remotely compared to our great God! None of us can fully realise how wonderful He is towards us, because it says we can’t even measure His greatness!😊

David had learned to spend a lot of time praising God and reminds us there will come a day when everybody will want to share the story of how good God is! 

Just for a moment, if we allow ourselves to imagine our lives as if we had never received Jesus as our Saviour how different it would be, how hopeless our future would look. But praise God, He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and translated us into His kingdom of light. He has given us a future and a hope, and washed all our guilt away when we repented and trusted in Jesus. How precious those truths are, and how merciful our God is. 

So let’s join with all those who have gone before us, who have also experienced the faithfulness and greatness of our God, and give Him our heartfelt praise. Allow His joy to bubble up and out for all Jesus has done and is doing for each one of us every day.😊 In His precious name. Amen.

Photo: Fleur on Unsplash