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Today’s private worship meditation is short and to the point:

Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, world without end. Alleluia. Amen.

Spend time in prayer giving God glory for Who He is, for His salvation, for His faithfulness, for His blessings . . .

Father God, in all we do and say, may You alone be glorified. When what we do and say does not glorify You, correct us. Convict us of our own self-glorification so that You receive the honor of which You are worthy. Be glorified. Amen.

Read Philippians 3:7-11

If you have access to it, listen to “Knowing You”

In Philippians 3, Paul talks about everything he once had. He had it all. And he makes that point here quite clearly. “If anyone here thinks they’ve got it all together, I had it even more than they do!” But what a step he takes next. He said he considers everything he once had rubbish. Rubbish. That’s not a term we use every day on this side of the Atlantic. Rubbish. Do you want to know what Paul literally meant by that? He meant dung. Actually, he meant an even stronger word than that, but it in the interest of discernment, I won’t use it here. At any rate, he meant feces. Everything he had accomplished was feces compared to knowing Christ Jesus.

That’s hard to think about it, isn’t? We love our accomplishments and our stuff. And I’ll admit I’m right in the middle of all of that. Our education, gadgets, toys, equipment, clothes, houses; we have a lot of stuff. Here’s the test I’ve been putting myself through over the last few years. Sometimes I pass the test and sometimes I fail. Will this “thing” help me to know Christ more or glorify Him more? If the answer is no or I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t get the “thing” or, if I already have it, I get rid of it.

Can you honestly say that you would get rid of it all, or you count it all rubbish for the sake of knowing Christ? I’m not talking about facts about Christ; I’m talking about a deep relational knowledge of Christ.

Join me in asking to God to shed light on that issue for us. That’s a question we need to ask every day, without fail.

Go and live in an ever-growing knowledge of Jesus Christ.

One of the purposes for starting this blog a couple of months ago was to provide you with resources that will help you make worship an integral part of your life, not just something you go to on Sunday morning. To that end, I started posting daily “private worship” posts which usually include a reference to a biblically solid song or hymn, a Scripture reference, and a devotional. I mentioned when I started those posts that they are borne out of my own private worship time and are made up of thoughts that I have about the song, the Scripture, and usually both.

Today, thanks to Tim Challies, I have been introduced to Pastor Way. Pastor Way writes a daily “TIME in the Word” devotional that is well worth reading. I have already subscribed to his feed in my Bloglines subscriptions.

The more I focus on private worship resources and writing private worship resources, the more I find similar things available. And many of them are so good I’m a little embarassed to throw my material in the same ring. I’ll point you to some of these resources soon. Then you’ll have a whole toolbox from which to pull material for your own time with God.

Read Lamentations 3:22-23

Read the text to “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”

I’ve been thinking about God’s faithfulness recently. How much do you think about and meditate on that subject? You could spend hours every day doing just that and never exhaust the topic.

Compare the fickle, ever-changing nature of humanity. We change our minds, we change clothing styles every month or so. Children “would die” for a toy that every parent knows in two days will be either broken or long forgotten—probably both.

Not so with God! He is forever constant. He never changes, His compassions never fail. Lamentations tells us His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. The same mercies we experienced yesterday will seem brand new and just as fresh today.

Spend time praying to God today, thanking Him for His love. Thank Him for His mercies and for making them new every morning. And then . . .

Go and live in those mercies and in His faithfulness!

Read Psalm 143, by Shane & Shane (oops! Shane & Shane didn’t write Psalm 143)

If you have access to it, listen to “Psalm 143 (Revive Me)”, by Shane & Shane

Yesterday’s scripture was Psalm 46, which extolled God’s protection of us during the storms of life. Of course there will be storms; just because we’re followers of Jesus Christ doesn’t mean that all of life is great. But we have the assurance of His being a strong tower during those times; we will always find shelter in Him.

Why is that? Is He required to take care of us? No. Is it because He loves us so much? That’s one reason. But then we could ask why He loves us. Again, He isn’t required to love us. We find the answer in Psalm 143. David is asking God to protect Him from his enemies. In verse eleven, David says something I bet most of us skip right over as we read this psalm. David says, “For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life!” For your name’s sake, O Lord.

God cares for us and loves us for His own glory! “That sounds selfish,” some might say. No, in fact, it makes His love and protection all the more real to us. Because the most pure and holy thing is the glory of God. And if His love for us is tied to His glory, we have no fear that we’ll ever be far from Him.

Go and live in the glory of God.