by Pastor Cecil | Mar 22, 2013 | Psalm
Psalm 33:1
Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.
What a wonderful woman! She stood less than five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. Because of being maltreated for an eye infection when she was only a few months old, she spent the remained of her 95 years totally blind.
Her name was Fanny J. Crosby. This tiny dynamo wrote over 8,000 poems and hymns during her lifetime. She composed her poems and hymns entirely in her mind and then dictated them to a stenographer. She was said to be able to work on as many as twelve hymns at once before dictating them all out.
Fanny felt that it was a special gift from God that she should be blind all of her life and she thanked Him for that gift. She felt that once she arrived in heaven the first face she desired to gladden her sight was he precious Savior. It was in 1896 that she wrote the hymn selected this week.
Praise Him! Praise Him!
1. Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
Sing, O Earth, His wonderful love proclaim!
Hail Him! Hail Him! Highest archangels in glory;
strength and honor give to His holy name!
Like a shepherd Jesus will guard His children,
in His arms He carries them all day long:
Refrain: Praise Him! Praise Him! Tell of His excellent greatness; praise him! Praise him ever in joyful song!
2. Praise him! Praise him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
For our sins he suffered, and bled and died;
He our Rock, our hope of eternal salvation,
Hail Him! Hail Him! Jesus the Crucified.
Sound His praises! Jesus who bore our sorrows,
love unbounded, wonderful deep and strong:
Refrain: Praise Him! Praise Him! Tell of His excellent greatness; praise Him! Praise Him ever in joyful song!
3. Praise Him! praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
Heavenly portals loud with hosannas ring!
Jesus, Savior, reigneth forever and ever;
crown Him! crown Him! Prophet and Priest and King!
Christ is coming! over the world victorious,
power and glory unto the Lord belong.
Refrain: Praise Him! Praise Him! Tell of His excellent greatness; praise Him! Praise Him ever in joyful song!
To access Praise Him, Praise Him, this week’s inspirational video from GloryScapes™ Inspirational Music Videos, please go to: http://www.gloryscapes.com/praisehimpraisehim in your browser or click on the image below.
Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!
—Pastor Cecil
360-570-0074
PastorCecil@Daily-E-Votional.com
by Pastor Cecil | Mar 21, 2013 | Exodus
Exodus 3:4-5
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called from within the bush, (Moses, Moses!) And Moses said, (Here I am.) (Do not come any closer,) God said. (Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.)
There is little concern in our day and age for the sacred things of God. Sloppiness, indifference, and a casual approach to the Word of God is of great concern. It almost seems as if many have created a God of their own making which allows or permits people to come into the presence of the King of kings and have no regard for His holiness.
I am not necessarily speaking of worship services, but that would certainly apply. What I am picturing is the contact we have with the Lord. I fear that much of the time we are so preoccupied with what is going on around us that we fail to see and experience the awesome holiness of God. Have we encountered the burning bush in our life?
After the encounter with the Burning Bush, Moses was empowered to become an instrument of God in leading the children of Israel from the bondage of slavery. Following this encounter, Joshua led the Israelites to supernatural victory over Jericho and the other cities in Canaan. Are you experiencing victories in your spiritual life? Have you had a burning bush experience?
In our personal burning bush we make our altar before the Lord. We are to fall on our face before the Spirit of God. In this holy place we must recognize that we are in the presence of the God who knows our every thought. It is not a place for us to boast or brag about what we have done, but a place where we acknowledge that without Him we are nothing. He must be our all in all!
Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!
—Pastor Cecil
by Pastor Cecil | Mar 20, 2013 | Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted.
Some of you may recall that I was a Combat Missile Crew Commander back in my Air Force days. At that time I was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Our squadron had five launch centers (buried deep underground) and each center controlled at least ten nuclear missiles assigned to it.
This was a tense time in our world and the threat of nuclear warfare was always a very real concern. Our launch sequences had to be perfectly coordinated with the other centers in our Squadron as well as other outside units.
One of the many steps in coordinating a potential retaliatory response, if we were attacked, was to insure that everyone involved had the same time, to the very second. Our clock in the Capsule was accurate, but each day at midnight we would tune to Radio Station WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado. They would transmit the accurate time and we would insure that our clocks were precisely set.
Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there are specific times in our life that are designated for its own purpose. We must never deviate from the Word of God. In a world with divergent voices that try to spout wisdom, there is only one source of accurate truth and that is our Bible. I urge each of you to spend more time than ever reading and heeding what God has inspired the writers of Scripture to record.
Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!
—Pastor Cecil
by Pastor Cecil | Mar 19, 2013 | Job
Job 23:12
I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.
It is hard to believe some of the inane commercials on television these days. However, there are a few exceptions from time to time, like the one currently showing for a popular soup company. Their standing format is a chef in a commercial kitchen stirring a large pot of soup. Then a customer calls in by using an empty can with string attached. (You may have tried that as a kid. It always required a straight line and not too much distance. But, hey, this is a commercial!)
In this particular commercial a man reads the soup label that claims the soup is able to improve his health, and he wants to know how to achieve this. So he calls the chef to ask the question — and her answer is to “just eat the soup.” The man studiously writes this instruction on his notepad: EAT THE SOUP!
How do we go about achieving a closer walk with the Lord that will promote our spiritual health? Just eat the soup! To clarify, spend quality time with your nose in your Bible with a notepad beside you to make notes as you discover the treasures inside.
It has been my experience across the years that reading the same passage many times over days, weeks, months, or years will reveal new and exciting truths. I urge you to discover a deeper walk with the Lord. EAT THE SOUP OF HIS WORD!
Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!
—Pastor Cecil
by Pastor Cecil | Mar 18, 2013 | Psalm
Psalm 139:1:3
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Years ago we were blessed with a small white bundle of love called, Perky. He was a mixed breed of Cocker Spaniel and Miniature Poodle. When Perky was a pup our oldest daughter had him on her bed with several stuffed animals and it was difficult to tell the pup from the stuffed animals.
As Perky grew there were certain rules that were established as part of his training. One of these rules was that he was not allowed to come to the table while we were eating to beg for food. He was to stay in the other room by his own food dish.
This is where the hilarious fun began! Somehow, Perky reasoned that if he could not see us, then we could not see him. He would walk very silently toward the table with his head away from us. You could tell that he was just dying to get near enough for a little bit of that wonderful food. When we would call his name, he would silently slip back to his own dish. We never tired of his antics and it is one of the things we remember about him.
On a serious and spiritual note, we seem to be a little bit like Perky. We somehow reason that if we deny our sin, God will not be aware of it. As we read these verses in Psalm 139, we see that He knows each and every step we take. We may think we are getting away with something, but God sees our heart and knows our every move. I for one do not want to be like Perky by sneaking near the forbidden places God has told me to avoid.
Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!
—Pastor Cecil
