PSALM 138:1-2 – I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.”
THEME OF THE DAY: DAILY DO WHAT GOD DAILY DOES. As we read today’s beautiful portion of scripture, pay particular attention to what we find the Lord doing. He is exalting above all things His Name and His Word.
How often and where is the Lord doing this work of exalting His Name and His Word? All the time and everywhere. First, He is doing so in creation –The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat (Psalm 19:1-6). Creation came to be from God’s Word as an expression and reflection of His glorious Person for the exaltation of both.
The second way we find God exalting His Name and Word is in the Person of His Son the Lord Jesus in and through the work of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul captures this picture of exaltation of the Name above all Names and the One who is the Living Word in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippian believers – Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).
Imagine the impact on our families and the influence in our churches and communities if we who claim to know the living God through Jesus Christ would be passionate and zealous in every conversation, every relationship, and every circumstance to do what God constantly does, exalt His Name and Word. If this was how God’s people lived daily, what was said of the 1st-century church would be said of us – “They turned the world upside down.”
PRAYER: “Father, help me to simplify my life around two things – exalting Your Name and Word.”
QUOTE: “We must not only proclaim His Name and Word by our voices but affirm both by our lives.”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim