Here’s some action words for you to try.
Psalm 100 1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his ; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Shout, worship, sing, know and finally enter. Those are our instructions from this psalm; a psalm for giving grateful praise (that’s what the online bible called it anyway). I think I like that idea.
I imagine most of us put a positive connotation to the word enter, especially when it comes to the gates of our Father and his courts. We want to be allowed entrance.
Entrance is acceptance, entrance means we belong and it makes us feel good. If we take the above literally though; we need to do some things before we enter.
Now, everyone can shout, we just have to turn the volume up a little. Everyone can sing although most of us would say we don’t do it very well. But I wonder how we think we stack up when it comes to worshipping and knowing our Lord? I have a feeling that we may feel we’re a little less adept at those two. Still, the psalm encourages us to do all these things: shout, worship, sing and even know with a sense of joy. It doesn’t say we have to be particularly outstanding at them, which is good. We are called to celebrate first before we ever think about entering. It makes sense if you think about it.
Who joins a club that they don’t think is cool? Who tries to gain entrance into a group they don’t admire? Who aspires to be on a team where they think they won’t be accepted as one of the teammates? No one. In fact it’s exactly the same number of people that will disparage these same things they want to be a part of.
So the psalmist’s urgings shouldn’t seem so odd now, should they? If we want to gain entrance we should gladly shout, sing, worship and know (have faith) that we are granted entrance. The really cool part is we don’t have to try out, learn some secrete handshake or pass some entrance criteria. Simply by being here, we are part of the group. That acceptance, that right to enter should be reason enough to do all of the things that come before our entrance.
The Everyday Question: What stops you from doing all the things above?
Do you know someone who thinks they’re not part of the club? If you think this might encourage them, please share it.
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