Thursday, August 10, 2017

Let the Whole World Know

Thursday, August 10, 2017
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.  Let the whole world know what he has done.  Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.  Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.  Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord.  Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him. 
Psalm 105:1-4(NLT)
And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message.  They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.  As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.  But when some Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, they went there and stirred up trouble.   Acts 17:11-13(NLT)
The Psalm writer says the task of those who love God is to let the whole world know.  Those of us who take that seriously also understand that’s not an easy job!  Paul found that out on a regular basis.  Some won’t hear the message because they don’t want to; others react with hostility, stirring up trouble.  Some receive the message!
As anyone who has taken the task of evangelism seriously has found out, our job does not include management; we are in sales.  Our job is to offer Christ, not force-feed salvation to the masses.  The question is:  What’s the best way to to that?
Scripture rarely paints a broad picture of what our task is without also telling us how we can accomplish it; these texts from Psalms and Acts are no different.  According to the Psalmist we are to actively engage the world by singing to God, preaching about God, exulting in God, rejoicing in our worship and always seeking God.
I was captivated by the word exult this morning.  I’ve always had a warm-fuzzy picture of this word when associating it with my relationship to God.  But I looked-up the definition today and found that, among other synonyms, exult is a verb, meaning there is action…and so, if we are to exult in God, we revel, glory, delight, or even wallow in the substance of our relationship with God.
Perhaps it may be a little sacrilegious to make a comparison here, but you may have watched a pig wallowing.
  I‘m not comparing Christians to pigs, nor God to the mud, but consider the pig’s relationship to mud…he loves it.  He rolls, roots and revels i
n mud!  Why do pigs wallow?  Scientists have suggested that lowering the temperature of their big, fatty, round bodies which store too much heat is the reason.  But recent studies indicate this is one way they shed parasites[ii].  This is a behavior which is natural; wild or tame, it’s a fact of pig hard-wiring:  pigs gonna wallow!
The follower of Jesus Christ is to exult in God.  In the same way pigs just gotta wallow in the mud, believers need to recognize and practice the Christian behavior of taking delight in being surrounded by the presence of God, how it soothes and marks us as His children.  (Probably gets rid of a few sin-parasites too!)
Being covered by His presence is what marks a witness who wants to let the whole world know the Good News.

For You Today

So, let me ask; are you wallowing in Him?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!
NOTES

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