Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.” So I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest.”
One of the greatest reasons to praise the Lord is that He has agreed to be our God. That’s something to think about, you know. He didn’t have to do it. We don’t have anything He needs. There’s no favor He owes us, nor any outstanding obligation that binds Him to us. He lacks nothing that only we can supply, and our leaving Him would result in no loss of stature to Him. He did it out of love.
When God gave Moses the four promises memorialized in the Four Cups of the Passover, He said, “I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:6-7)
Jesus made similar promises to His Church. In the Sermon on the Mount He told us not to worry about what we’d eat or drink or wear, promising that if we sought His Kingdom, He’d provide these things as well. He was taking us out from under the yoke of the world.
When He went to the cross, He freed us from our slavery to sin. When He walked out of the Tomb, He proved that He had redeemed us to life with a mighty act of judgment over death.
When He said ask and you’ll receive, seek and you’ll find, knock and the door will be opened, He was agreeing to take us as His own people and be the God of all who seek Him.
That means so much more than just pardoning us for our sins. It means agreeing to accept responsibility for meeting all our needs during this life, and guaranteeing a place for us in His Kingdom in the next one. It means that wherever we go and whatever we do, he’ll be right there with us, protecting us from harm, working things out for our benefit, and pouring on generous doses of blessing along the way. Not just now and then, or when it suits His purpose, or is convenient for Him, but always and forever.
If you’ve trusted Him for your salvation, but haven’t fully yielded your life to Him, you’re missing out on a huge part of the blessing He promised you. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Cor. 1:20)
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.