The Godly Nation

Scripture Text: Deuteronomy 10:12-22


“Do not be stiff-necked any longer!” These words could just as well read “Relax and enjoy the glory of your God!” I think that one of the greatest stumbling blocks to being able to rejoice spontaneously in God’s glory is our inability to lighten up when it comes to walking with the Lord. We’re afraid that we might do something wrong or that we might forget to do something that is “required”. We think that we don't pray well enough and that we never offer the “right” passages of scripture. And possibly our greatest fear is that we just might fall short in glorifying God to the degree that He deserves.

The truth is that every single one of these things will occur, but that’s no reason not to do it anyway! And as many ways that there are to immerse ourselves in His glory, there is no one “good” way to praise the Creator of the heavens and the planets and the atoms. But we need to know there is one bad way, and that is to avoid praising Him altogether!

We may envy the abilities of others to choose just the right words or to speak with just the right emphasis. We admire their ability to cause goose bumps to quickly spread across everyone's bodies, and we wish we could be that eloquent. But if we could take a look inside of God’s psyche for just a moment, we would quickly discover that He doesn’t want to hear us mimic the praises of someone else – He wants to hear the original praise that comes from deep within our own hearts and souls. The “perfect” praise, if there is such a thing, is the one that comes honestly and directly from within us.

We also think that our best praise comes during those times when we are blessed beyond all measure, and that we could never adequately experience His glory without joy in our hearts. A 13th century poet by the name of Angelico wrote:
"The gloom of the world is but a shadow behind it. Yet within reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look. Life is so generous a giver: Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, the angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They too conceal diviner gifts."

“There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see [it]!” In Psalm 73, we read the words of a person who is living deep within a self made darkness, and yet we also read in the Psalm (v.25) these words of praise – “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”
We need to offer praises to our King even when we don’t feel like it, because there is no one else, not in heaven or on earth, who desires our praise and deserves our praise as much as our Lord!

A story is told of a pagan who once asked a rabbi, “Why did God speak to Moses from that bush?” The pagan thought that a truly powerful and glorious God should have spoken instead in a peal of thunder on the peak of some majestic mountain.
The rabbi answered, “To teach you that there is no place on Earth where God's glory is not, not even in a humble bush.”-- Ken Gire,Windows of the Soul(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 44.

Do we really believe that there is no time, no place, no event so earthly that God cannot be there, that He can not speak through those times and places and happenings? These moments where Earth is overwhelmed with heaven, these Bethlehem moments where something divine is given, not through heavenly ways but through very human ways, will go unnoticed unless we realize the meek and unassuming way that God usually comes.

We need to be prepared to see Him in every moment, every movement, every event, and every
- place, and we need to relax and be ready to praise Him in every possible way. Praise Him with music and dance and embrace. Praise Him with up stretched hands and bowed heads. Praise Him with committed lives and dedicated hearts, and sometimes, even praise Him with human words!

Christians can no longer afford to be sedate and quiet in their praise of glory – we’ve been that for far too long! We’ve shrunk from the glare of secular society, because their recriminating words make us uncomfortable. We’ve turned our faces away from sinfulness, because others tell us to mind our own business. We’ve lowered the volume of our radios when we approach a stop light, because we don’t want to offend the person who is blaring their acid rock music at us. We’ve stopped praying during lunch time at work, because others won’t give us even a moment of quiet from their vile banter.

We have, by default, sacrificed the glory of God to the demands of the world! We choose to live in the darkness instead the light, expecting that God will, somehow, understand. But the truth is that “there is no place on earth where God’s glory is not, not in the humble [not in the challenging, and not in our every day world.]”

Praise Him! All the time and in all your ways!

When we read the praises of Psalm 150, we discover that there are no limits to the ways we praise God. Praise Him in every way possible!

With every breath that you take.
With every ounce of your being.
With every means at your disposal.
With every moment of your time.
In every circumstance you are in.
With every thought that you have and every word that you utter.

Praise the Lord!