Shalom,

I love how Psalm 75 begins!

¹WE GIVE praise and thanks to You, O God, we praise and give thanks; Your wondrous works declare that Your Name is near and they who invoke Your Name rehearse Your wonders.

This is from the Amplified Bible and is very close to the literal meaning. The phrase "give thanks" is the Hebrew word "yadah" that we have looked at before. Remember that it means to laud, to praise and to worship with extended hands! The word "declare" is one we recently looked at that means to recount or rehearse. The "wondrous works" is the Hebrew word, "pala`", which means: to be marvellous, to be wonderful, to be surpassing, to be extraordinary, to separate by distinguishing action, to make miracles. Then let's look at verse 9:

⁹But I will declare and rejoice forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

The word "declare" here is a different Hebrew word than the one used in verse 1. This one is "nagad", which means: to stand boldly out opposite, to be conspicuous, to announce, to expound, to publish. That sounds a little more "out there" than the first verse, doesn't it? Then we will also sing praises! That sounds like a lot of good and Godly action from US towards God! Guess what? He LOVES it when we do that! And, when we do, He inhabits those praises! (Psalm 22:3)

In Romans 3 Paul begins talking about whether there is is any advantage to being a Jew by birth. But the verses we want to look at are 9-18:

⁹What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.

¹⁰As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

¹²They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

¹³Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

¹⁴Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

¹⁵Their feet are swift to shed blood:

¹⁶Destruction and misery are in their ways:

¹⁷And the way of peace have they not known:

¹⁸There is no fear of God before their eyes

That is a pretty good picture of personal sinners that NEED a personal Saviour! It is also a pretty good picture of the world in which we now live. So can't we just obey the commandments and be pleasing to God? Let's look:

¹⁹Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

²⁰Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

That means that the Law was given for the purpose of showing mankind that we could NEVER keep it! The law shows us what is sin (a selfish decision to do something MY way instead of God's way!) so that we could all realize the sin in our lives. So what hope IS there? Let's look at that, too:

²¹But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

²²Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

²³For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

²⁴Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

²⁵Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

What is "true faith" in Jesus? It is believing that He died on the cross for YOUR sin. That He was raised from the dead and is now sitting at the right hand of the Father. It is accepting and receiving Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and personal Saviour and having faith, trust and confidence in the fact that He was MADE sin with YOUR sin, when He had NONE of His own. It is also believing that YOU have been MADE righteous with HIS righteousness in that same way and at that same time! THAT is the TRUTH of the Gospel! God isn't holding anything against anyone! The only sin that is NOT taken care of by the Blood of Jesus is the sin of rejecting Him. That is the ONLY thing that will keep people out of Heaven when they leave this earth! If you haven't already, is there any reason you can't receive Jesus of Nazareth as YOUR Lord and personal Saviour? Then pray this prayer, believing:

Almighty God, I am a sinner. I believe that Jesus Christ came to this earth, died on the cross for me, was raised from the dead, and is now seated at Your right hand. I accept and receive Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and I invite Him to come into my heart and become Lord over my life. I thank You now Father, for welcoming me into Your family. You are my Father. I am Your child. Jesus is my Lord! Amen.

Amen! Welcome to the family of God! Now you need to get into a good, Scriptural, local church where the Word of God is taught and you can grow up in the Word surrounded by like-minded believers who love you! Go to the Spoken Word Church website through the link to the left of this blog and let us know where you live. We will try to locate a church in your area so you can get started. In the meantime you can listen to the sermons and read the article to get a head start!

In Leviticus 20-21 we see another very accurate picture of our world today! Many of the things we see that God detests in these two chapters are being forced on believers in Jesus of Nazareth as "normal" now. It is NOT true! There is no such thing in God's eyes as an "alternate lifestyle". What God loves then, He loves now. What God hated then, He hates now. Why? Because all of those things will steal, kill and destroy people, families and lives. Jesus of Nazareth is STILL the answer for sin! God does not hate the people who do these things. On the contrary, He so greatly loved and dearly prized every person IN the world that He sent Jesus to pay the price for all of that sin! Read John 3 in the Amplified Bible. Take a look at Leviticus again and pray for all of the people that you know who may be caught up in these things. Then pray for their salvation and deliverance from that sin. Pray, asking the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into their lives who will be able to reach them with the Gospel of God's great, everlasting LOVE! JESUS! AMEN!

Shalom in Him!