Pentecost Hymn

This hymn is
based on the Pentecost account in Acts 2.
The tune is familiar.

Recording
Printed Music

You’ve poured out Your Spirit, Great Father of Life,
Your presence, Your power, the Spirit of Christ,
The fruit of His triumph, the breath of His love,
The proof He has risen and reigns now above.

Your promise is given in wind and in flame,
With lives now ignited to burn in Your name.
Now loving, now holy, now bold in the truth,
Your body, Your people are one, Lord, in You.

We praise You, our Father, the Fountain of Life,
For comfort and challenge, for purpose and light.
In love we will share all the gifts You provide
That all may be blessed and our Lord glorified.

Your challenge is sounding. Our calling is clear:
To live out a gospel the needy can hear.
Lord, help us to go till all people have heard
And touch every life with the love of the Lord.

by Ken Bible, © 2004 LNWhymns.com.

Praise

I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
(Psalm 145:1-3, NASB)

The more I know God, the more I realize that my response to Him is cold and inadequate. He is the Sovereign God, the Creator who overflows our sprawling universe, the One who holds insignificant me in His hand and in His heart, who constantly lavishes on me His attention and His most tender love and care, the One who poured Himself out and groaned and bled and died for me. Yet my response to Him is so occasional, so shallow, so distracted, so half-hearted.

I don’t necessarily want more emotion in my worship. I want to be more aware of God…to always be centered on Him…to have an open line of communication between us every moment…to trust Him simply and constantly.  I want to spend less time longing for what I don’t have and more time thanking and praising Him for all that He constantly gives me. I want a living praise, a continual response to His presence.

The Psalms prod me toward such praise:

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name. (103:1, NIV)

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. (146:2, NIV)

I have no hope that I can give Almighty God adequate praise. But His Spirit is faithfully drawing me to Him. The closer I live to Him, the more natural and heartfelt praise becomes. Read Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5. Those who stand before God’s throne need no prodding to praise Him. How can they possibly do anything else?

That is my destiny. That is the destiny of all who trust Him. We will live in His immediate presence together, forever, responding to Who He is:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
(Revelation 5:13, NIV)

One day, the reality of
all Jesus is and
all He has done
will sweep all creation up into
one mighty response of praise,
full heart and
full voice,
forever and ever!
Even then, His greatness will
far overshadow our small response.
For eternity His
overwhelming magnificence
will draw us into lives of
ever increasing worship and love.

Hymn: Psalm 148

Psalm 47

Our Lord is not just
the Christian God.
He is the Lord and Savior of
every nation,
every age,
every culture.
Sing for joy!
Rejoice!

Recording
Printed Music

Refrain:
Come, clap your hands!
Sing for joy! Sing for joy!
People, rise up and worship your King!

Come see your God, high and lifted up,
One Lord, one Christ over all,
One Sovereign ruling in perfect peace.
All other kingdoms will fall.

See Christ ascend with a mighty shout!
His people lift up their voice.
He reigns above from His holy throne
As earth and heaven rejoice.

From every nation and time and tongue,
His people gather as one.
We praise our Savior for all He is
And what great things He has done!

by Ken Bible, © 2019 LNWhymns.com.

The Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation

Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

For the next two weeks, reflect on The Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation. It briefly surveys what the Bible teaches about God’s great gift to us: His own Spirit. This free pdf consists of scripture, prayers, reflections, and 16 new hymns for public and personal worship.

It is part of the new series, Fresh Views of Timeless Truth, focused reflections on key topics.

LINKS:
Free pdf of The Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation
Complete list of available volumes in Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

You Are God

God,
You whom I see so dimly and
trust so haltingly,
trust so haltingly,
You are GOD.
I look up and around me,
backward, then forward,
as far as my imagination can stretch,
and You are there.

Creator God,
You greet me when I rise in the morning.
God of Goliath and Jericho,
You invite me to trust You
when life seems impossible.
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
You will introduce yourself
to my great-great-grandchildren.
You will be God for them as well.
You wrap each of us,
with all time and space,
in Yourself.
And when You speak Your name,
it is Compassion,
it is Faithfulness,
it is Father.

O Lord, my Lord,
how excellent is Your name in all the earth!
Let me hope in nothing else,
let me long for nothing else,
let me worship nothing and no one else
but You,
Everlasting Father,
my God.

We fail to fully grasp the
wonderful reality of God because
in our small and self-centered hearts,
we cannot conceive any Being
so much greater than ourselves.

Hymn: All-in-all

Christ in Psalm 30

Psalm 30; Luke 22:53; John 17:3; Hebrews 2:11

In the light of Christ,
Psalm 30 becomes a
celebration of His glorious resurrection.
This hymn captures that celebration,
to a familiar tune.

Recording
Printed Music

Praise to You, O glorious Brother,
Humbled, now exalted high.
Once, like You, condemned and dying,
Now we breathe Your risen life.

Darkness ruled for but an hour,
Weeping lasted for a night.
Now the dawn, and what rejoicing!
Now the day of endless light!

Lord, Your favor lasts forever;
Pain and pleasure come and go.
Life in You is life eternal,
Heaven’s peace begun below.

All our grief is turned to dancing,
All is joy each moment new,
Praising, living, loving, sharing
Ever, only, all in You!

by Ken Bible, © 2018 LNWhymns.com.

One Thing I Seek

Whom have I in heaven but you? . . .
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26, NIV)

When I can finally see God for all He is to me –
            all that He always has been and always will be –
            so that anxiety and fear are lost in total trust;
When I have truly grasped His love,
            so that joy, rest, and belonging
            are deep and rich and constant;
When I am filled and dominated and totally led by His Spirit
            so that every desire, every thought,
            every motion of my being
            is in Him and prompted by Him;
What hunger will be left?

Psalm 27 expresses it this way:

One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the Lord and to seek him. (v.4, NIV)

When I see Him fully and trust Him completely, the only thing I will still hunger for is Him. All the beauty, glory, and abundance of heaven will come from one Source: God himself. We will never be anything but completely dependent on Him – not on His gifts, but on Him.

Revelation 21:22-23 says that in His immediate presence, we will need no sun, moon, or temple. He himself is our warmth and our light. Our worship is face-to-face.

In His personal presence, Jesus’ simple statements about himself become personal truth:

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35, NIV)

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. (John 8:12, NIV)

I am the resurrection and the life . . . Whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26, NIV).

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. (Revelation 21:6, NIV)

Your heart can be captured by the living beauty and simplicity of the personal Christ. That beauty holds a bonding that grows stronger and stronger, prayer by prayer. As we trust Him and love Him, we find our needs and hungers met in Him. Every lesser desire gradually disappears into Him.

And in knowing and interacting with such a wonderful, infinite God, we never get to the point of feeling, “OK, that’s enough.” Even in our joyful satisfaction, the hunger remains, continuing to draw us into fuller friendship with Him.

All of history, all the vast universe – seen and unseen – and all the desires and hopes of humanity are summed up in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). That summing up is also an individual process. Let Him start it in you now. Let Him begin it in your heart, and He will spread it throughout your thoughts and feelings, your attitudes and lifestyle.

He has not put eternity’s best blessings out of your reach. They are as near as His presence, as near as looking to Him in simple faith.

Father,
I look forward to the day when we
see You,
know You, and
respond to You for
all You are.
That will be heaven!

Hymn: Psalm 84

Display Your Splendor in Me

Ask God to glorify Himself,
not only through
your strengths and
successes,
but through
your weaknesses,
struggles, and
suffering.

Recording
Printed Music

Display Your splendor in me,
Through my weaknesses and needs.
In my shadows, be a Shining Light.
In my weakness, show Your holy might.
Display Your splendor in me.
Display Your splendor in me.

Display Your splendor in me.
Be the Lord of every need.
In my coldness, be a Living Flame.
In my suffering, glorify Your name.
Display Your splendor in me.
Display Your splendor in me.

by Ken Bible, © 2000 LNWhymns.com.

Praying for Others

Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

For the next two weeks, reflect on Praying for Others. This free pdf is full of scriptural wisdom on how to intercede for those you love. It consists of scripture, prayers, reflections, and 12 new hymns for public and personal worship.

It is part of the new series, Fresh Views of Timeless Truth, focused reflections on key topics.

LINKS:
Free pdf of Praying for Others
Complete list of available volumes in Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

Fearing Change

“Listen to Me…
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb;
Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
I will bear you and I will deliver you.”
“I, the Lord, do not change.”
(Isaiah 46:3-4; Malachi 3:6, NASB)

God of unfailing, unrestrainable love,
how often do I
resent and
resist
the blessings You send me!
I hide.
I argue.
I lash out.
I whine and complain like a child,
fearful of change.
I cling to my poverty because it is
familiar and
safe.

O Father, forgive me!
Forgive me for mistrusting Your love!
You are the unchanging God,
always only wisdom,
always only good,
always only bringing our best.
Through all the changes and seasons of life,
I will look to You.
I will bring my concerns to You.
I will trust You.
And then, even in my ignorance,
I will rejoice in what
Your omniscient love is doing for me.

You are good, Father!
You are always good, and
Your love endures forever!

Wars,
betrayal,
persecution,
deception,
disasters, and
death
are part of the inevitable course of this world.
But stay confident:
God is still in control of the outcome.
All will serve His loving purpose.

Hymn: Unchanging Father