Great is our Lord and mighty in power.

Refrain: Great is our Lord and mighty in power.

1 Alleluia.
How good it is to make music for our God, ♦
how joyful to honour him with praise.
2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem ♦
and gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted ♦
and binds up all their wounds. [R]
4 He counts the number of the stars ♦
and calls them all by their names.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; ♦
his wisdom is beyond all telling.
6 The Lord lifts up the poor, ♦
but casts down the wicked to the ground. [R]
7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; ♦
make music to our God upon the lyre;
8 Who covers the heavens with clouds ♦
and prepares rain for the earth;
9 Who makes grass to grow upon the mountains ♦
and green plants to serve our needs. [R]
10 He gives the beasts their food ♦
and the young ravens when they cry.
11 He takes no pleasure in the power of a horse, ♦
no delight in human strength;
12 But the Lord delights in those who fear him, ♦
who put their trust in his steadfast love. [R]
13 Sing praise to the Lord, O Jerusalem; ♦
praise your God, O Zion;
14 For he has strengthened the bars of your gates ♦
and has blest your children within you.
15 He has established peace in your borders ♦
and satisfies you with the finest wheat. [R]
16 He sends forth his command to the earth ♦
and his word runs very swiftly.
17 He gives snow like wool ♦
and scatters the hoarfrost like ashes.
18 He casts down his hailstones like morsels of bread; ♦
who can endure his frost? [R]
19 He sends forth his word and melts them; ♦
he blows with his wind and the waters flow.
20 He declares his word to Jacob, ♦
his statutes and judgements to Israel.
21 He has not dealt so with any other nation; ♦
they do not know his laws.
Alleluia.

Refrain: Great is our Lord and mighty in power.
Psalm 147

The Divine nature, providence, and grace.

Praise ye the Lord; ’tis good to raise
Our hearts and voices in his praise;
His nature and his works invite
To make this duty our delight.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem,
And gathers nations to his name;
His mercy melts the stubborn soul,
And makes the broken spirit whole.

He formed the stars, those heav’nly flames;
He counts their numbers, calls their names;
His wisdom’s vast, and knows no bound,
A deep where all our thoughts are drowned.

Great is our Lord, and great his might;
And all his glories infinite:
He crowns the meek, rewards the just,
And treads the wicked to the dust.

PAUSE.

Sing to the Lord, exalt him high,
Who spreads his clouds all round the sky;
There he prepares the fruitful rain,
Nor lets the drops descend in vain.

He makes the grass the hills adorn,
And clothes the smiling fields with corn;
The beasts with food his hands supply,
And the young ravens when they cry.

What is the creature’s skill or force,
The sprightly man, the warlike horse,
The nimble wit, the active limb?
All are too mean delights for him.

But saints are lovely in his sight,
He views his children with delight;
He sees their hope, he knows their fear,
And looks, and loves his image there.
Psalm 147 part 1 by Isaac Watts

Psalm 147 can be split into particular sections. If we were to do that we would have:
Part 1: Praising God for His protection and preservation.
Part 2: Praising God for His work in nature.
and Part 3: Praising God for His wisdom, power, and word.

All of these parts have the same thing in common – we are praising God and we are to praise God.

There is no heaven in this world or the world to come for those who do not praise God. It is good to sing praises to our God. The goodness of praise comes from the truth that it is beautiful. True praise is beautiful to God. It is right, it is our duty and our joy to praise and thank our God. He does nothing but good to us so we should speak good of His name.

God cares for both communities and individuals, calling the outcasts and healing the broken – hearted. His majesty spans the length and breadth of the universe right down to each individual need.

God resists the proud whilst giving grace to the humble. He lifts up the meek but casts the wicked to the dust.

As we learn more of God’s nature, both earthly and heavenly, we naturally respond with praise. We see His power and loving nature as it comes together in His work in and continued care of creation. We see His sovereignty over and concern with all His creation, not only the magnificent stars, but also the lowly creatures on earth.

God takes pleasure in the reverence and trust of His people. Those who find their hope in His mercy (God’s great love and loving kindness) delight God, because they honour Him with their trust.

Our worship of God is not empty adoration; it is gratitude for specific goodness and the anticipation of future goodness. God gives security, a future, peace and provision.

The same God who orders and directs the natural world through His word has also brought the revelation of His heart and mind through His word to His people. God regards humanity as rational and capable of relationship; seeking a relationship, not simply programming a sequence of actions to be carried out. We should praise the Lord for manifesting himself to us.

Understanding the greatness of God, His care for humanity and all of nature, and the remarkable power and nature of His word, should move us to praise Him all the more. Hallelujah!

We pray:

Compassionate God,
as you know each star you have created,
so you know the secrets of every heart;
in your loving mercy bring to your table
all who are fearful and broken,
all who are wounded and needy,
that our hungers may be satisfied
in the city of your peace;
through Christ who is our peace. Amen.

Stars (Photo by Nicolas Outin on Pexels.com)

The Merry Month of May …

…May is a month of rebirth, inspiration and excitement; a time of profound growth, renewal and divine grace.

“What a busy world we live in.

Everyone is full of cares.

Worries, stress and strain of living.

Nothing done, yet time is scarce.”

As we see more signs of Spring and more signs that we are moving into Summer, we have the opportunity to pause …

… to pause and reflect …

… to pause and renew …

But, for this to have any positive effect on our lives we must truly understand what that means.

Renewal is the beautiful, often slow, sometimes painful, work of God stripping away our ways of being that we think feel safe but which, ultimately, are not our truest selves. It is God stripping those away, layer by layer, to reveal the glory He placed inside us.

By glory I don’t mean fame, influence, ego, or self importance; but a “crucified” kind of glory. One which comes through surrender.

Resurrection cannot be experienced without death. We need the cross!

If we allow God into our hearts we cannot limit Him to just the part we want Him to see. We must surrender to Him our whole selves, good and bad, happy and sad, our ingrained patterns and our hidden fears. Then we have to allow Him to transform us.

It’s not about becoming better but about becoming “God’s original masterpiece”; becoming who God originally created us to be.

Freedom and renewal begins in admitting we are deeply flawed and desperately in need of a Saviour. It begins in surrender.

Ephesians 4:22-24 “To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

So, how can we achieve this?

Slowly and repeatedly. Renewal is a slow plodding process of pain, death and reconfiguration, well before any energy and encouragement bursts onto the scene. To be made new or to be remade new means something needs to change and change is not easy. It needs to happen everyday. It happens by the Grace of God but we have a significant part to play. We must, daily, reflect, pray and act. We must also open ourselves to humility. We must emulate Jesus – what would Jesus do? We must trust in God and in His loving ways. We must stop resisting and pass our burdens to God, allowing Him to provide.

True renewal requires releasing old ways, habits or pains. It is an act of “composting” old habits and letting them die in order to nurture new growth.

Embrace change! It is, after all, a daily requirement of being a Christian; and it’s coming whether you like it or not!

May (Photo by Gamontat Om on Pexels.com)

Life to Dry Bones

The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.”
Ezekiel 37: 1 – 14

When I read this passage it always reminds me of the scene from the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts when the bones rise out of the ground and reform into skeleton soldiers marching across the valley. When I shared this with my husband and explained the intricacies of this stop motion creation by Ray Harryhausen, unbelievably, of course, my husband had no idea what I was talking about. Well, obviously that had to be rectified and so I showed him the scene in question so that he could see the animation of the skeletons – to help him visualise the life to dry bones. If, like him, you have missed out on this cultural experience the clip is available to view on YouTube.

Having slightly detoured, let’s get back to Ezekiel and the dry bones.

“The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord”, basically, Ezekiel had a vision. And in his vision he saw a large valley, the Valley of Death. Everywhere he looked Ezekiel could see bones all over the ground. Bones laying on the surface of the ground are from people in disgrace who have been denied a proper burial; and being dry bones they are from people who have been dead a long time. They had had life once but it had long departed. Yet God asked Ezekiel whether these bones could live.

Ezekiel had no hope in the bones, but he did have hope in God. Ezekiel did not presume to know what God wanted to do with the bones; but he was confident that God DID know.

Ezekiel deliberately left the matter with God, to God’s power and wisdom. In return God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to these dry, dead bones.

To an outsider looking in this would probably be conceived as foolishness. In Corinthians Paul acknowledged that God’s rescue of humanity in the person and work of Jesus, especially His sacrifice on the cross, was foolishness to those intent on perishing.

Ezekiel preached his message full of faith in God, he was confident that he was speaking God’s word and that the word of God is full of power.

God promised to restore life to these bones. The bones could not create life themselves but as the word of God was proclaimed over them they received God’s promise of life.

This restoration of life was to be marked by breath living once again in these bones – God’s Spirit, the breath of life.

Ezekiel did as God commanded and as he continued to prophesy to the bones their revival took place in stages. First the bones stirred, then they assembled, sinews and flesh were added, the skin covered the tissues and they awaited the breath of God. This is a direct reversal of the decomposition process.

Next God told Ezekiel to call upon the Spirit of God to come upon those on whom the word of God was working. Ezekiel proclaimed God’s message, the breath of God breathed into the reanimated bodies and they stood on their feet becoming an exceedingly great army who lived to act under the orders of God who gave and restored their life. They had God’s word and Spirit, an army of life willingly under the command of God.

If we have word but no Spirit we are like a dead army, assembled but without the true breath of life.

God then explains the vision to Ezekiel. God is promising to restore the whole house of Israel in a restoration so wide and deep that it will be fulfilled as part of God’s plan for Israel in the very last days.

This whole passage highlights to us how God works in revival and how God’s servants should think and act relevant to God’s mighty reviving work:
– God’s servant knows the bones are dead and dry
– God’s servant must walk among the dead and the unrevived
– God’s servant must proclaim God’s word
– God’s servant must have almost a foolish confidence in God’s word
– God’s servant must understand that the Spirit works in a process
– God’s servant must recognise that the work of the Holy Spirit is essential
– God’s servant must boldly pray for the Spirit to move
– God’s servant must speak in the power of faith
– God’s servant must notice every evidence of the Spirit’s work
– God’s servant must look for God’s people to be revived into an army of service
– God’s servant must not say that hope is lost

Upon the valley, wide and sear,
Where death had settled, year on year,
The Spirit set me in the cold,
Amidst the dry bones, grey and old.
Can these bones live? The Voice did ask,
This impossible, heavy task?
I answered not with my own thought,
But “Sovereign Lord, You know,” I brought.

Then came the word: “Prophesy, O son,
To what is broken, dead, and done!
Tell them to hear the LORD on high,
Who brings back breath, who gives them sky.”
As I did speak, a rattling song,
As bone to bone rushed to belong!
Tendons and sinews, flesh and skin,
Wrapped around the void within.
The forms stood up in silent grace,
A breathless army in that place.

“Prophesy again,” the Word did say,
“Call from the four winds, breath of day!
Breathe on these slain, that they may live,
The resurrection I will give.”
The breath of God, the spirit-wind,
Filled the lungs and freed the pinned.
They stood on feet, a vast, huge host,
Alive by Son and Holy Ghost.

“These are my people,” saith the Lord,
“Lost in the graves, by hope ignored.
But I will open up the tomb,
And bring them out of death’s cold gloom.
I’ll put My Spirit in your heart,
A new life, right from the start.
Then you shall know, from dust and sigh,
The Lord has spoken—and will not lie.”
The Valley of Whispering Dust