Title Believe and Praise / Psalm 106:12
Last week I had the opportunity to spend time in the valley with my children. It is shallow and wide. After it rains, the water runs down quite quickly. Families who have been on vacation for a long time enjoy playing in the water. I see children in rubber boats going back and forth. The father rides the children in a rubber boat and ties them up with ropes to get them up and down. To entertain the children, fathers are busy coming to the valley on vacation to entertain the children. During the holiday season, fathers struggle to please their children during the holiday period.
Seeing their children happy is the joy of parents. When children suffer because they are upset, that in itself is a pain for parents. The same is true of our relationship with God. When we rejoice, God rejoices through our joy, and when we grieve and suffer, God suffers with us. Therefore, if those who become children of God have a responsibility, it is to live joyfully and joyfully in the Lord.
Then can we live happily in the Lord? There are many ways, but “a life of believing and praising” is a glory to the Lord and a joy to us.
We believe that if we believe and pray when we are faced with difficult times, and believe and praise us when we have happy events, our life will always be a blessed life that never leaves God.
Specifically, what can we believe in and praise?
Believe and praise the grace you have helped so far. The Israelites gather at Mizpah and pray to God. Knowing this, the Philistines gathered to invade. The people of Israel were in peril. Samuel prays to God to overcome this crisis. Then thunder and lightning struck, and a heavy rain fell, and the Philistines lost their minds and were victorious in the end. He was so grateful for God's grace that Samuel set up a stone between Mizpah and Shen and called it Ebenezer. That said, you have helped us up to this point.
Think of our past. All of this is by the grace of God. Without God's grace, could we be where we are today?
The verses in this text reflect on the past of the people of Israel. The work of suffering as a slave in Egypt, the work that God caused them to leave Egypt, and the work that made them pass through the wilderness and enter the land of Canaan. It is a message to believe in all the grace you have helped in the past and to praise God.
But we forget the grace that God has helped us so far. Think about what made our country free from Japanese colonial rule, what protected us from the threat of war, what made us develop in spite of the pain of poverty, and personally, think of all the past. What is all this but not the grace of God? Let's believe in and praise the grace that has helped us so far.
The God we believe in is not only with the God of the past, but also with us now. The God of Ebenezer becomes the God of Immanuel. You are still with us The reason Jesus came to this earth was not to leave us as orphans. Say, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel." God is with us. Jesus came to this earth to be with us. This verse is recorded in Matthew 1. Look at the last chapter of Matthew, chapter 28. “I will always be with you, even to the end of the world,” he said clearly. Now these words are valid. The Lord is with us until the end of this world.
According to the words of Genesis, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. confess this God with Abraham, God with Isaac, God with Jacob. And Jacob said to Joseph, "I die, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers." The God who was with us opened a prosperous path for Joseph.
God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses confesses that he can't do it. throw the stick It became a snake, and when it was caught again, it became a staff. He said to Moses, "The God who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be with you." He experienced the God of Immanuel. When Moses went to Pharaoh, he went with the “staff of God” in his hand.
As the Israelites passed through the wilderness, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud led them. This was a symbol of God being together. It is the symbol of Immanuel. Even in places like this wilderness where we live, God is with us. Let's believe and praise God who is with us and live.
After passing through the wilderness, Moses takes over the leadership to Joshua. Then God said to Joshua, "No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you."
Let's believe and praise God, who is with us even now.
In this way, the God we believe in has helped us until now, is with us now, and is preparing good things for the future. Let's live believing that God is preparing good things for us and praising Him.
God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, whom he had at the age of 100. Abraham obeyed the word and went up to Mount Moriah with Isaac. The moment he was about to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering, God had already prepared a sacrifice there. Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh. It means "On the mountain of the Lord it will be prepared." God is ready and waiting for our future.
The term providence is derived from the Latin providentia, which means "to see". In other words, God's providence means God's love for knowing and preparing what is needed in advance. God sees what we need and prepares it in advance.
God is preparing for us tomorrow, next month, next year, ten years, one hundred years, and even our post-death world.
Let's believe and praise and live. Believe and praise the grace you have helped so far. Let's believe and praise God's grace that is still with us. Let's praise and believe that good things are being prepared in the future. I hope that our lives will be in which we believe and praise God, who gives us abundant grace in the past, present, and future, not just praising with our lips.