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Hear the devotional: https://anchor.fm/eradio-valverde/episodes/Praise-to-Our-Rock-e203enn
View the devotional:https://www.tiktok.com/@eradiovalverde/video/7208403191447309611?lang=en
1 Come, let's shout praises to God, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us! 2 Let's march into his presence singing praises, lifting the rafters with our hymns! 3 And why? Because God is the best, High King over all the gods. 4 In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns, in the other hand grasps the high mountains. 5 He made Ocean - he owns it! His hands sculpted Earth! 6 So come, let us worship: bow before him, on your knees before God, who made us! 7 Oh yes, he's our God, and we're the people he pastures, the flock he feeds. Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks: 8 "Don't turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising, As on the day of the Wilderness Test, 9 when your ancestors turned and put me to the test. 10 For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience. And I was provoked - oh, was I provoked! 'Can't they keep their minds on God for five minutes? Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?' 11 Exasperated, I exploded, 'They'll never get where they're headed, never be able to sit down and rest.'" (Psalm 95 The Message Bible)
Why do we pray dear Reader? Because God answers prayer! I shout my praises to Him for His having given you as one of our prayer partners. The news from Atlanta is very good! Ezra's fever left almost immediately as we prayed, and the MRI showed nothing and so the doctors are recommending a special doctor-administered antibiotic drops to fight the ear infection, so thank you again for your faith and prayers. Our sister Dena Fritz has asked prayers for her sister-in-law MaryAnn Jorgensen, who's battling pneumonia in a hospital in Kyle, TX. May God bring healing to her and comfort to those who are anxious about her situation. Pray for one another. Pray for your needs; pray for the needs of the world.
Please be aware that this coming Sunday you should eat a big breakfast because your preacher will be preaching way beyond the OLD 12 Noon hour. Your mind may understand the time change or not, but your tummy will not! Yes, we will Spring forward on Sunday at 2 a.m.
Those news go hand in hand with this psalm. God is worthy of our praise all the time; in the good and the bad and some have been led to believe that we need to praise God more in the good than in the bad because sometimes we begin to take God's goodness and blessings for granted. And something we should never take for granted is salvation. That in and of itself is a reason to have a parade! And the psalmist then lists his reasons for having this big celebration; "God is the best, High King over all the gods." God holds in one hand deep caves and caverns, in the other hand, He holds high mountains. God made and owns Ocean (the psalmist's way of saying all oceans and seas), It was the hands of God who made this earth, and it was God Who made us. God is our shepherd, whose flock we are and He feeds us.
The psalmist then re-tells the Exodus story (from yesterday's scripture studied) as he tells of God saying, "For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience. And I was provoked - oh, was I provoked! Can't they keep their minds on God for five minutes? Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?" God, the psalmist said, reached the end of His rope and swears an oath that Israel will never reach where they were headed and never be able to sit down and rest. The people did enter and settled, this is the psalmist's perceived sense of God's anger.
Our Lenten Journey should resemble, in our way of course, the parade the psalmist talks about; shouting praises and raising the roof for the Rock; our Rock - from Whom came forth the water that helped the screaming and complaining "kids" have their thirst quenched, to the living water that Jesus offered to a woman who had been married five times and whose current companion was not her husband. Come all to the fountain of life and drink deep that which God makes possible to us!
PRAYER: Loving and awesome Father, for all things we are thankful and joyful. Help us to celebrate all things in ways that invite others to come and join us; in Christ Jesus we pray, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! YOUR CALL TO ACTION: Parade proudly the praises of God!
Receive my blessings of joy and love,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
