When situations get tough or a crisis happens within a family, it is so easy to worry, wail, and cry, "Why me Lord?" This is especially true whenever health issues pop up in our lives. Been there, done that....many times.
But how often do we, as believers in Jesus Christ, stop and consider the immense blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon us during our lives? How many times do we thank Him? At dinner each night? At church each week? Once a year at Thanksgiving?
A Bible verse comes to mind.
What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me?
Psalm 116:12
Even though we can give our heartfelt thanks for all that Jesus Christ has done for us, the question that Psalm 116:12 is asking is "what shall I render...?"
At Dictionary.com there are a LOT of definitions and descriptions for the term "render."
What can we learn from the Bible about this term and verse?
The Blue Letter Bible provides a Treasury of Scripture Knowledge page that gives us additional passages that can be studied regarding answering such a question:
Psa 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
No matter what happens on this earth, no matter how long each of us lives, no matter what obstacles are thrown in our path - we can always have the joy of God's salvation in our hearts, minds, and spirits! If we let Him uphold us by His generous Spirit - He most certainly will!
Psa 51:13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.
When we are filled with the joy of the Lord and His provision of salvation through Jesus Christ, we can then "teach transgressors" (all have sinned) His ways, and sinners (we all qualify for that title) shall be converted to God!
Psa 51:14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my salvation, And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
Once we know that we are delivered from all of our sins - even the heinous sin of bloodshed by "the God of my salvation," we can then sing the praises of the righteousness of Jesus Christ! It isn't our righteousness that saves - it is His!
Psa 103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
Is this verse telling us that blessing the LORD via our souls in prayer helps to remind us of all of His benefits?
Isa 6:5 So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts."
The Old Testament prophets, such as Isaiah, looked forward to the coming of the Messiah to save them from their sins. Meanwhile, they sacrificed unblemished animals for the temporary forgiveness of sins - a foreshadowing of what Christ's sacrifice would accomplish in the final act of redemption for all of mankind. Isaiah prophesied much of what the coming Messiah would endure for our salvation. Seeing the King, the LORD of hosts was frightening indeed because of his sinful condition. But that's not the end of the story!
Isa 6:6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar.
Isa 6:7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged."
Another symbolic act where in the OT, the prophet Isaiah was assured that his iniquity is taken away by God and his sin purged from remembrance. In the next verse, look at Isaiah's huge change in attitude!
Isa 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."
Isaiah changed from the frightened sinner into a man that God could use! He enthusiastically answered "the voice of the Lord" by saying, "Here am I! Send me."
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
When we get to the New Testament verses from this list, we see that the "brethren" were to present their bodies as a living sacrifice - meaning that they would gladly obey God's commands and be holy and acceptable to God while doing service for Him in spreading the Gospel of Christ.
1Cr 6:20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
And why would we become "living sacrifices" for God? This verse answers that question - because "we were bought at a price" through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross! We are now called to glorify God both in body and spirit!
Now we get to the crux of the matter and can answer the question in Psalm 116:12 - What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me?
2Cr 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
2Cr 5:15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
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4 comments:
Hi Christine:
You are beautiful when you speak about the Lord! I love you, Sister!! Shabbat Shalom. (ss)
As always your posts are uplifting and edifying. The price of salvation was paid by Christ ... now our part:
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
AN APPEAL TO CONTACT SARAH PALIN…
EVERYONE…do what you can to contact Sarah Palin and tell her to reach out to all America and let everyone know about the Writ of Certiorrai before the Supreme Court and the pending decision to hear the Petition from Cdr. Kerchner re: Obama’s eligibility on Novemeber 23.
PLEASE READ THE POST BELOW FROM GUL READER, TED, WHICH PROVIDES PERSPECTIVE.
If you can Tweet, write on her Facebook or you anyway know how to contact her, please do so today! Time is of the essence!
If you want to write to Sarah Palin (express mail would be best) her address is:
Gov. Sarah Palin
1140 W. Parks Highway
Wasilla, AK 99654
Posted by giveusliberty1776 at 9:49 AM 0 comments
A GUL READER WRITES..
SARAH PALIN CAN SAVE AMERICA WITH ONE SIMPLE ACT
Governor Palin is a courageous person, no doubt. In view of her massive following, if she would simply, briefly, tweet about the upcoming case before the US Supreme Court next week, it would change the course of American history.
November 23, 2010 marks a fork in the road for the future of America of more than historic proportions — perhaps on par with events leading to the Civil War. To date, virtually all federal and state courts where actions have been brought seeking decision on the meaning of the Constitution’s Article 2 “natural born citizen” clause as a prerequisite for Barack Obama to be a lawful President and Commander in Chief of the United States (Mr. Obama having been born to a father of British/Kenyan nationality and father not a citizen of the United States), have been shut down, never getting beyond the issue of standing. To date, courts have very strategically (narrowly if not artfully) characterized and applied law and legal procedure steadfastly to prevent the question from ever rising to the merits — this on a host of different types and classes of plaintiffs, causes and defendants — admittedly under the most intensely implicit (if not more) pressure to do the same.
The national media (some say our 4th branch of government) has aided and abetted the avoidance by mischaracterizing this as a “Hawaii birth” a/k/a “birther” issue which is nothing more than a “red herring” in that the issue for Article 2 “natural born citizen” is Mr. Obama’s father. Moreover, the legal community has aided and abetted the avoidance by mischaracterizing the 1898 Supreme Court Case, Wong Kim Arc, which dealt with the meaning of “citizenship”, not the meaning of “natural born citizen” under Article 2.
November 23, 2010 may very well be the last chance for the Judicial Branch realistically to take up the issue, this on a case of legal standing solidly presented by Attorney Apuzzo and Commander Kerchner. If the Court finds no standing here, by a narrow interpretation of the same or otherwise, coming after all the rest of the “no standing” cases, it is doubtfull this important Constitutional issue can and will be resolved in any court of law. The question will nevertheless continue to fester, at tremendous national cost, never to abate, potentially to reach crisis stage, and in any event to undermine the structure of our Constitutional Republic.
It is more than chilling and says volumes that NOT ONE member of Congress will publicly speak on this or, better yet, since the Congress of the United States has more than a vested interest, opine if not as a “friend of the court” at the Supreme Court, in the court of public opinion — BEFORE the Supreme Court convenes on November 23, 2010.
The world is (should be) watching!
PRETRIB RAPTURE – HIDDEN FACTS !
How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He is now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. Since Jesus must personally participate in the rapture, and since He can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends, the rapture therefore cannot take place before the end of the trib! Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who would be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which is Israel's posttrib resurrection!) If anyone wonders how long pretrib rapturism has been taught, he or she can Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards.” Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 it was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Other Google articles throwing light on long-covered-up facts about the 180-year-old pretrib rapture view include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “X-Raying Margaret,” "Edward Irving is Unnerving," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," and “Deceiving and Being Deceived” – all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” which is available at Armageddon Books online. Just my two cents’ worth.
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