Praising and Serving

 Sunday is the Lord's Day. It is our time to rest and to set the day apart for worshiping Jesus, our Lord. It is such a joy to know Jesus and have eternal life! What better thing to do on the Lord's Day than to gather with His people and praise Him with all of our heart? Also, what better way to worship the Lord than to serve Him day after day in all we say and do. He is worthy of our worship and our service. I pray that we will all make our way to church and have a blessed day of worship and service.

The psalmist gave us another great insight as He shared under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. (Psalm 134:1) "Oh, praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, you who serve at night in the house of the Lord." I hope this verse will help us think about why we praise and why we serve the Lord, so we will do both in a way that brings the most glory to God and the most blessings to us. Let's take a few minutes to break it down.

Our praise must come from our heart and be expressed only to God who is the object of our praise. That means we should be able to praise the Lord, even in the dark of night with no one around. If we are able to do that we are expressing pure praise to God from our heart. Then, I want to challenge all of us to praise Him in the same way when we go to church and we praise with other believers. Let's not praise any more or any less just because we are with others. Yes, it is more powerful to praise God in unity with others, but it is most powerful when we praise Him as if we were alone at night.

Service to God is much the same way. We should serve the Lord, even when others don't see what we are doing to serve the Lord. The reason we serve must be to obey God fully, not to get any credit for what we do from others. In fact, if we serve in secret it shows God how much we love Him and how we are willing to do His will no matter what. That kind of service is what God sees and blesses. So let's all praise and serve God even if no one else sees us.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 135-137.