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Psalm 34

“Psalm 34” is
an opportunity to express your joy in
the amazing goodness of God.

Recording
Printed Music

Every day, all day long, my Lord,
My being lifts up Your praise.
All You are, all You do, O God –
I think of You.
I speak of You.
My being lifts up Your praise.

Here in You, I need nothing more.
What light and beauty and peace!
Living Bread, Wine of Life, my Lord –
I taste and see.
O taste and see!
What light and beauty and peace!

You are love, love complete, O God!
My joy is living Your praise.
Through each loss, through each trouble, Lord,
I rest in You,
Complete in You.
My joy is living Your praise.

by Ken Bible, © 2020 LNWhymns.com.

Psalm 70

This hymn is a
simple prayer that
we can carry with us every day:
“Father God, I need You!”
We can always call confidently on
Him who is with us
wherever we are.

Recording
Printed Music

Father God, I need You!
Hear my urgent prayer!
You are here each moment.
Make me more aware.
Keep me more aware.

Evil would destroy me;
Death is its delight.
You are love almighty,
Goodness, truth, and right.
Keep me true and right.

All our hopes and longings,
All our hearts pursue,
All our needs and struggles
Draw us back to You.
Lord, we cling to You!

by Ken Bible, © 2021 LNWhymns.com.

God Alone

We grasp so much for material goods
though they give us little satisfaction.
Yet we are satisfied with so little of God.
He has endless treasures to give,
and we are content with only passing moments of inner joy.

Give yourself entirely to God.
Make pleasing Him your only concern.
Whatever you do throughout your day,
do it for Him.
Turn away from everything that doesn’t lead to Him.

You were made for God alone.
Find your happiness in loving Him.

Hymn: Draw My Desires to You, Lord

Father, You Are My Joy

I cannot control the
evil and
injustice
that flood my world.

I cannot erase all the problems,
big and
small,
that pressure my days.

My heart is weighed down by my
weakness and
uncertainty.

But I look to You:
almighty,
all-wise,
all-loving God,
pure,
unchanging,
high and lifted up,
always right, and
always,
always
good.

Father,
You are my joy.
You are my rock-solid stability.
I look to You, and

Smile.

Hymn: My Father, My Joy

Psalm 15

This ancient Psalm is about
holiness.
Who can stand in His holy presence?
Set to a familiar tune.

Recording
Printed Music

O Holy God, the Lord Most High,
Your greatness fills all time and space.
Who dares approach Your awe-full throne
Or stand before You face-to-face?

The one who talks and walks Your truth,
Whose words and deeds are like Your own,
Who freely gives as You would give
And lives each day to You alone.

But none are pure or right or good
But You Yourself, O Holy One.
Come bow and breathe Your greatest gift:
The Spirit of Your Holy Son.

In Him, our Lord, we simply share
The goodness only You can be,
A holiness that’s rich and real,
That all the world can feel and see.

by Ken Bible, © 2020 LNWhymns.com.

I Trust You with My Time

My times are in Your hand. (Psalm 31:15, NASB)

Creator of all eternity,
Lender of my life,
I trust You with my time.
Help me relax and listen,
letting You be the Master of my moments,
accepting each one from Your hand
as I receive each borrowed breath,
each meal,
each joy,
with appreciation and anticipation.

Teach me to walk in all the freedom Your love provides.
Thank You, my Father.

Calmly, quietly attend to what
God has assigned you today.
You can accomplish far more by
calm, thoughtful work
done in God’s sight
than by hurried human busy-ness.
(paraphrased from Francois Fenelon)

Hymn: Content in You

Time

“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27, NIV)

When we consider the natural world, we begin to realize that time hides from us many of the Creator’s most spectacular miracles. Some are too split-second for us to perceive; others are too gradual to appreciate.

For instance, on one hand, consider a single beat of a hummingbird’s wing (up to 80 per second!). On the other hand, ponder the sculpting of the Grand Canyon.

Or think of the human body. Each simple function is a chain of interworkings, incredibly complex, yet almost instantaneous. But just as marvelous is the transformation of a microscopic egg into an adult human being, capable of reason, imagination, love, work, and worship. (Growth seems to be God’s favorite miracle. Up close, it’s invisible. From a distance, it’s breathtaking . . . too beautiful to rush.)

We are locked into the present, with narrow notions of fast and slow. We are caught in the blindness of time, space, and self. The Everlasting One blesses us, and we do not see Him coming or going. We fail to trace all the wonders of Him who is unhurried and unhindered by time, reigning in eternity. To the Overlord of all the ages, the Master of each moment, nothing is fast or slow. Time is not a barrier or a restraint, but a tool wielded by His wisdom.

How foolish, then, for us to pretend to be masters of our time. We frantically try to control what we cannot control. Rigid, rushed schedules are our attempts to bring productivity, consistency, and balance into our confusion and fatigue.

But the Lord reminded me years ago that time anxiety is as foolish and unproductive as all other anxieties. Anxiety blocks our free and open response to God’s moment-by-moment leadership. Worry produces only tension, selfishness, and insensitivity. It chokes out love, gentleness, and joy.

Turn to one of the Gospels in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) and read about Jesus. Notice that while He had so much to accomplish in so little time, He never rushed. He was busy, but He never seemed tense or hurried.

That’s because He focused on only one priority: following His Father’s leadership step by step. Each moment was in His Father’s hands, so Jesus simply did as He was directed to do and worked as He was enabled to work.

Our Creator, our Father gives us the same privilege. We don’t need to juggle our priorities and obligations in our own wisdom. God wants us to lead and balance our lives by his wisdom. He calls us to listen and respond to His leadership regarding time. We are to use our self-discipline there rather than toward our own arbitrary schedules. As we do, He breathes natural balance and joy, a peace and productivity into each moment, of both labor and rest. He slips accomplishments into our schedules that surprise and delight us.

He is personally with you always. He would be delighted to guide and provide for your time needs. This is just one more area in which He calls us into a closer, more constant fellowship with himself.

God’s gifts are practical. They are more satisfying than we have tasted or imagined. He invites us to discover them all.

God is never in a hurry.
He is the master of time,

not its slave.
Walk with Him in His peace.

Hymn: I Leave It in Your Hands

Humility

From Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever. (Romans 11:36, NASB)

Humility is seeing God.
Humility is worshiping Him.
Humility is loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Humility is loving others fully and joyfully.

Humility is truth.
It is seeing the world and ourselves as we really are.

Humility is sweet freedom from life’s
most constant and most crushing burden:
the burden of self-concern.
Humility is the freedom to release selfish anxiety and
embrace Christ for all He is.

Father, humility is knowing You.
It is one of the gifts of knowing You are with me.
Thank You, my Lord!

Don’t despise your own
weakness and smallness.
They glorify God.
He uses them to display
His power and greatness.

Hymn: Meekness

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Justice

His work is perfect,
For all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.
(Deuteronomy 32:4, NASB)

How do we know what is just and right in any particular situation? What is justice after all?

We usually think of justice as a certain standard of fairness, of right and wrong. We say that God is just because He consistently adheres to that standard.

But God is the creator and source of all. There is no separate standard of justice to which we compare Him. There is no outside set of rules by which He must abide in order to be “just”. He Himself is the standard of justice. Justice flows from His character and is seen in all His actions. We say that He is just because we see that He is always consistent with Himself. His actions are always consistent with His perfect wisdom and perfect love.

So how can we understand justice and live just lives?

We are just when we are like Him. Our actions are just when we act like Him.

We often think of justice and mercy as opposites…or at least as two competing values that must be balanced. We see justice as absolute rightness, and mercy as a kindly compromise with justice. But when we realize that justice and mercy are both descriptions of God’s nature, we see them not as opposites to be balanced. They are two facets of the same jewel. God is always completely merciful and always completely just.

Thus when we are called to seek justice in this unjust world, we are not called to a specific social agenda. We are called to think and live and be like God. We are called to be holy as He is holy, to live and speak the truth as He is the truth, to love as He loves. We are called to be His children, His ambassadors, His servants, His hands.

The Old Testament beautifully pictures our just and loving God, reporting His words and actions over many centuries. But He is most completely revealed in Jesus Christ. Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15) and the exact representation of His being (Hebrews 1:3). What is more, Christ enables us not only to see and know God, but to live in Him, and He in us. He gives us the Spirit of God so that by simple faith, we can live just and loving lives in this present world. Through His people, and above His people, God is creating the just world that He has promised.

Father, Your goodness, justice, and mercy
are such a comfort to us!
We depend on them,
appreciate them, and
praise You for them.
So help us to be good, just, and merciful with
everyone we touch.

Hymn: Justice Hymn