Archive for June 2019

We Need to See You

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted. (Isaiah 6:1, NASB)

Father, we are flooded with so many needs,
but our real need is
You.
We need to know You for all You are,
the One true God,
high and lifted up,
the Holy One,
our Source and Goal,
the All-in-all,
our Eternal Father.
We need to see You for all You are.
We need to trust You always for all You are.

Lift our eyes, Father.
Help us to see You.

God wants us to know Him.
His most intricate and detailed works—
creation,
the Bible,
even the Old Testament tabernacle—
are those that fill our mind and senses with Him.
Father, I want to know You.
Open me to receive You.

Hymn: Simply God

Psalm 5

A warm, gentle prayer
for starting the day
with God.

Recording
Printed Music

I wake to You, my Father.
Hear my heart.
I crave Your holy nearness
From the start.
The lies of sin surround me;
You are true.
Lord, keep me pure and loving
Just like You.

I rise to face the darkness;
You are light.
Immersed in all this wrongness,
Keep me right.
Your Spirit breathe within me
Ever new.
I love You, O my Father!
Praise to You!

by Ken Bible, © 2018 by LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Prayer 2

Monday –      Turn to God
Hymn: Psalm of Trust (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     The Music of Prayer
Hymn: It’s So Good to Be with You (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Be Open with God
Hymn: Holy Father, Only You (recording) (printed)

Thursday –    Honest with God
Hymn: Always in You (recording) (printed)

Friday –          Always Face to Face
Hymn: The Father’s Face (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Jesus Models Prayer

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

Live as Seeing the Unseen

We walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7, NASB)

We tend to react only to what seems real to us. And as humans, we interpret reality primarily by what we can see. If it happens to be visible, it’s real. If not, it can’t be fully trusted.

But even science tells us that our sight perceives only a fraction of reality.  Many “lower” animals perceive the world very adequately without the sight we experience. In fact, many of them sense vast portions of reality we never notice in our heavy dependence on sight.

For example, many animals live in a world of smell. They rely on it to find food, to find mates, and to protect themselves. Some scientists believe that pigeons and salmon can use scent to navigate great distances.

Other migrating animals, including certain butterflies and birds, seem to find their way across vast distances of unfamiliar territory simply by sensing the earth’s gravitational field.

Sharks, the platypus, and other species can sense electrical impulses in the bodies of their prey. Rattlesnakes and their fellow pit vipers find their prey through an organ that detects body heat. Bats can fly with incredible agility and accuracy, even picking insects out of midair in the dark, using their built-in ultrasonic radar.

Some animals and plants can predict the weather as well as we can, or even better. They seem to know of coming thunderstorms, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions, perhaps because they can perceive electrical charges in the air, hear low-frequency vibrations, or feel tiny tremors to which we are oblivious.

Even in the area of sight, we are sometimes left far behind. Birds of prey can clearly see what is almost invisible to us. And some insects see colors the human eye can’t distinguish.

All this reminds us that as physical beings, we humans operate on a heavily filtered version of reality. Sight leaves us in the dark in many, many respects. And if we perceive so little of what is real in a physical sense, imagine how little we perceive of the realities that are not dependent on matter.

That brings us to Hebrews 11. It talks about people who pleased God by trusting Him, despite the way things looked around them. Noah spent many years building an ark, based purely on God’s warnings about things not yet seen (v.7, NASB). Moses overcame all the trials and difficulties of leading Israel out of Egypt because he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen (v.27, NASB).

All these saints lived wisely and fruitfully by focusing on the reality of God’s presence. Almighty God was always with them. They knew it was true, and they acted like it, even though their eyes could not see Him.

I long to live that way, knowing and trusting that reality, living in full response to His personal presence with me. What a joy it would be to consistently act and react as seeing Him who is unseen (v.27, NASB).

I want to live and serve that way, to pray and worship, to think and talk as being immediately with Him always and forever.

Live in response to Sovereign God,
not in response to your childish fears.
Walk in the light of all He is,
not in the shadow of your own smallness.

Father, in This Suffering

Even as we walk through
the darkest valleys,
we can know God’s
precious, personal presence with us.
We can share a
deep, sweet union with
Christ, the Man of Sorrows.

Recording
Printed Music

Father, in this suffering,
This deep and desperate darkness,
Though I cannot feel You,
I know You walk beside me.
Broken and defenseless,
Awash in waves of sorrow,
Reason now is helpless,
But faith is calmly resting
In Christ, with Christ in You.

Through this loss so bitter
You give a gift more precious:
Deeper, sweeter union
With Christ, the Man of Sorrows.
All is false and fleeting
But You, my love, my Father!
Suffering always passes,
But joy is full forever
In Christ, with Christ in You.

by Ken Bible, © 2016 by LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Prayer 1

Monday –      A Better Life Is Waiting
Hymn: I Have the Truth (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     Prayer Is Simply Talking to God
Hymn: As I Pray (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Just Talk with Him
Hymn: Simple Faith (recording) (printed)

Thursday –    Constant Prayer
Hymn: As I Trust You (recording) (printed)

Friday –          God Enjoys Your Company
Hymn: Ephesians 1 (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Called Aside

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

Love in Living Color

Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
(Psalm 36:5, NASB)

Our beautiful earthly home paints our Father’s love
in living color.
Open your eyes! Look around!
With youthful enthusiasm our timeless God
carefully planned all the universe,
from immense panoramas
to the tiniest, most stunning detail.

He took pleasure in displaying His magnificence for all to see.
He eagerly provided for our every need.
There in the very beginning,
the same sovereign Word that spoke the world into existence
blessed us.
He blessed us even more richly in Jesus Christ.
He continues to bless us day by day with everything
good,
noble,
pure, and
lovely.

Rejoice in Him!
Worship our Father for all He has done!

To the trusting heart,
all reality is a forest,
dense with the life and
mysterious beauty of God.

Hymn: Psalm 104

Our Hope Is All in You

Based on Psalm 33,
this hymn expresses
a confident hope and trust
firmly founded on Almighty God.
The tune is familiar.

Recording
Printed Music

You speak, and it is so
Above, beyond, below.
Our hope is all in You!
Creator, Breath of all,
May we, so brief and small,
Put all our trust in You!

Our human plans are vain.
This world is Your domain.
Our hope is all in You!
You give and You control.
You fill and rule the whole.
Our trust is all in You!

You love and understand
Those resting in Your hand.
Our hope is all in You!
We look in reverent fear.
You smile and draw us near.
Our trust is all in You!

Our strength, our help, our shield,
Transcendent love revealed,
Our hope is all in You!
O joy of all our songs,
To You our breath belongs.
Our trust is all in You!

by Ken Bible, © 2018 by LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray 

about 

Trinity 

 

Monday –      The Christ of Trinity Sunday
         Hymn: Trinity Hymn (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     Prepare for Trinity Sunday
         Hymn: Give God What Is God’s (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Knowing the Unknowable
         Hymn: One with God (recording) (printed)

Thursday –    Our All-encompassing God
         Hymn: Father and Son (recording) (printed)

Friday –          Glorify Jesus Christ
         Hymn: Not I, but Christ (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     The Enthronement
         Hymn: Enthronement Hymn (recording) (printed)

 

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

In His Presence

O Lord my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty.
(Psalm 104:1, NASB)

Some of the most profound and moving moments of my life have been spent under the clear night sky. Looking up from my backyard, I feel I am in a great hall of eternity. I see the stars and think of the unfathomable distances of time and space there before me.

I am awestruck by the vastness of God. He is there, filling all space, all eternity, and beyond. I sense that I’ve walked into His holy temple, and the only proper response is to stand in total silence.

I am one of billions of life forms on this planet, which is little more than a pebble orbiting the sun. And each of those tiny stars there in the sky is roughly the size of our sun. There are a billion trillion of them scattered like grains of sand through the vastness of space.

The total life span of one of those stars, millions or billions of years, is only an episode in the life of the universe, to say nothing of His unimaginable eternity. And my life…my life is the tiniest fraction of a heartbeat. One breath.

Lord God, why do I matter to You? Why do You even notice me? God, why should You care about me?

I stand here wrapped up in my own little world, so anxious and dark. But I am in Your world, in Your domain, in all its vastness and serenity. Your skies are singing, “He is good, and His mercy endures forever.” Your trees, so stately against the sky, are silently chanting, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic You are in all the earth.” The whole world is a symphony to Your name. I listen, and I can hear it.

God, my Father, I don’t know why, but I know that You love me. I see Your love in my life. I hear You whisper it in my heart.  And I don’t want to ignore Your love. I don’t want to ignore You, my God.

There is so much I don’t understand about You. But I know that when I admit that You are God–that You are my God–I am embracing the truth.

I know that when I believe You love me and start to trust Your love, it pleases You. It pleases You very much.

And I sense that when I open myself to You, I am opening myself to Your goodness and wisdom and to a wonderful future with You.

Lord God, I am nothing in myself. I am significant for only one reason: You, Great Creator, love me. Teach me to love You in return.

O Father,
if only everyone recognized You for
who You are,
the sovereign Creator,
the Source and Goal of all that is!
How different our world would be, and
will be!
How blessed we are to know You,
serve You, and
live every moment in Your care!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Lord, You Are My Home
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics