Over and over throughout God's Word our Lord affirms that His love will never fail, and the Psalmists and people of God echo that back in worship. Not only has God revealed Himself to be "unfailing love," but has also by His grace shown Himself to be our unfailing love. One of those early songs rings in my ears, "Oh how I love Jesus, because He first loved me." God's love was His first initiative to our worship. He initiates; we respond. In Psalm 52:8-9 the Psalmist says, "But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever. I will praise You forever for what You have done; in Your name I will hope, for Your name is good. I will praise You in the presence of Your saints." It is important that we praise Him in the presence of His saints. And it is ever essential that as we prepare to praise Him in the presence of His saints that we all prepare with persistent prayer. Our Pastor reminded us of that today in a great message on prayer. Thank the Lord for more than 250 First Family members we know of, our worship leaders and our worshipping prayer warriors who pray weekly for our worship services. It would be easy to let up and not persist, but we must not. Ps. 37:5 states, "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act." And in Ps. 130:5, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope." In our praying we anticipate the presence and power of God every week as the saints gather for worship. mjm
A Melody from Michael J. . . . a Personal and Worship Blog
