Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - “Call to Worship” – Friday, 25 April 2014 - Scripture: Psalm 95:1-11

Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - “Call to Worship” – Friday, 25 April 2014 - Scripture: Psalm 95:1 Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh.

    Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!

2 Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving.

    Let’s extol him with songs!

3 For Yahweh is a great God,

    a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth.

    The heights of the mountains are also his.

5 The sea is his, and he made it.

    His hands formed the dry land.

6 Oh come, let’s worship and bow down.

    Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,

7 for he is our God.

    We are the people of his pasture,

    and the sheep in his care.

Today, oh that you would hear his voice!

8     Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah,

    as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,

9 when your fathers tempted me,

    tested me, and saw my work.

10 Forty long years I was grieved with that generation,

    and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart.

    They have not known my ways.”

11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,

    “They won’t enter into my rest.”

“Call to Worship” by Duane C. Brush

Twice the psalmist invites us to come before God in praise and worship (95:1, 6). Worship requires relocation. We must leave where we are and enter a place where God can be exalted and glorified. This is not primarily a physical location as much as it is a spiritual and emotional one. It has less to do with our surroundings as with our attention, where and on whom it is focused.

For ancient Israel the call to worship the Lord, “the great King above all gods,” meant that they could no longer dally with idols. To truly worship they must focus on the true God whose awesome grandeur can be perceived in His creation. Israel had to come out of their tendency to bitterly complain against God whenever they felt their needs and comfort were not being sufficiently met. They needed a new vision of themselves as “the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” A proud posture will not do, “Come, let us bow down.

Come and worship God. Focus your attention on Him and not the false idols this world extols. Let go of the past with its self-absorption and bitterness. Kneel before the Lord. You are under His care.

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Hymn for Today:

“O Worship the King” by Robert Grant

1. O worship the King all-glorious above,

O gratefully sing his power and his love:

our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,

pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

2. O tell of his might and sing of his grace,

whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.

His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,

and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

3. Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?

It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;

it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,

and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

4. Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,

in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.

Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,

our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

5. O measureless Might, unchangeable Love,

whom angels delight to worship above!

Your ransomed creation, with glory ablaze,

in true adoration shall sing to your praise!

Thought for Today:

“Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods?

    Who is like you, glorious in holiness,

    fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11).

Prayer Needs:

Many young people in Bolivia will be called into full-time Christian ministry.

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Kansas City, MO 64108 United States

Embrace holy living…visit reflectinggod.com.

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