When God Sings

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

This verse gives an important insight into the heart of our saving God. God loves to be the God of deliverance and salvation. The precious promises found in this verse come after severe judgment and justice come among God's people. They would pass through a refining fire. Arrogant leaders and profane priests would be eliminated (Zephaniah 3:3-4). The humble and lowly would be left with an attitude of seeking the Lord (Zephaniah 3:12). Then salvation would work again among God's people.

I love the three ways this affects God. 1) He rejoices over the people whom He has saved and who now serve Him. Our salvation and service bring joy to the heart of God. 2) He will quiet the hearts of His people by His love. He enters into a relationship with us that brings peace and love into our troubled lives. He settles us down. 3) The wildest part of this is that God will break out in exultant, loud singing over our salvation! He sings over us. Imagine that! We worship Him in song in our humble praise, but God loudly sings over us when we are saved by Him. Salvation's joy is a duet, song by man and God!


- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

Human Pride & the World's Oldest Lie

This is the exultant city that lived securely, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is no one else." What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beasts! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
Zephaniah 2:15

These words were written about a city that God at one time spared when they repented: Ninevah. You can read about their story of repentance in Jonah. But at this stage, human pride had crept in. The Assyrians were proud and cruel. This city had attitude. They felt they were the greatest thing on earth. The new city slogan was one that only should be said of God: I am and there is no one else. This was hijacking the glory of God.

God promised complete desolation to that town, and that is exactly what occurred. Ninevah is now an archeologist's ruin. It became desolate and deserted. An empire crumbled. A city was overrun and destroyed. Only ruins exist and they had to be dug from the earth that swallowed them.

Human pride is very powerful and very temporary. It gets its instant of self-glory, but in no way does it compare to the eternal majesty of God. Eventually humanity's best efforts lead to ruin. We fall apart. Entropy and decay, disease, chaos, war, and poverty all take their toll. We cannot claim to be like God, though Satan continues to re-package that first lie to us (Genesis 3:4-5). Glory only belongs to God. And human beings are better only in worship of Him.

- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

Believing There is a God is Dangerously Not Enough

At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, 'The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill.'
Zephaniah 1:12

This verse show us that the heart of God is not tender toward His people when they become apathetic toward Him. These folks are theists. They believe God does exist. They just cannot ascribe any clear activity in the world to Him. But God is about to change their theology.

The climate that created that kind of complacency in Jerusalem was one in which Israel had slowly let the worship of God decline. It began by allowing idolatry to coexist. Then they became syncretistic in their religion, acknowledging every kind of pagan god around them. That is the danger of an accommodating religious tolerance that things all religions are equal. All religions do not teach the same thing and do not lead to the same place. And God gets our attention when we disobey Him or replace Him or deny Him.

God was going to demonstrate His judgment on people who doubted His activity in the world. It would eventually come very swiftly and brutally to Jerusalem. Eventually Babylon would totally sack the city, kill thousands, and lead the survivors in humiliation to a captivity far from their familiar home. There the Jews would abandon idolatry never to return to it. But the hard lessons would come because believing there is a God is never enough to enter into proper relationship with Him. Good theology leads to robust worship, obedience, and the awareness of His activity in the world.


- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

Location:Thompson Dr,De Soto,United States