How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! Ps 84:1

What a wondrous place: to be in the presence of Almighty God! This place so near to our blessed Lord is not a place of contention and strife. It is not a place of bitter envying, and evil surmisings; but rather a place of pleasantness, and peacefulness. Oh, to dwell in the place where Gods presence is real. Often times we have a supposed presence, but not the real thing. When there are strifes, and carnality at work we can be sure that this is not where the true presence of Almighty God is to be found. When brethren dwell together in unity there is a peace that is there, and then we can expect for our Lord to show up. Often times we read "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Mt 18:20" but we fail to understand that we must be gathered together in His name. It truly is sad when we see those who will come to Church, not to worship the Lord; but to cause problems. There have been good services despite these peoples presence, but we must remember that the tabernacle (dwelling place) of the Lord of hosts is amiable! The Psalmist (likely Obed- Edom) had learned to love and bask in the tabernacle of God. He loved it because it was a place of peace and rest. It was a place where he could go, and escape all the problems of this life. He could go there and not have to hear an unkind word being harshly spoken. He could go there and see all of the wonderful types of Christ being portrayed before his eyes. Should we not today be able to experience the same ecstasy when we enter into the Church of the Living God? We may not see all of the types, as did the Psalmist, but we can go and hear about the work that was finished on the Cross for us, thus removing the types, and replacing them with the real image! What a wonderful place to be, what an awesome privilege to be there, let us not forsake it as we see the day approaching.

"...remember the Lord..." Neh 4:14

When the remnant of Israel began to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem they were met with opposition from the heathen who sought their destruction. Here, Nehemiah is trying to encourage them not to give in; the fight has begun, and it is time to dig in your heals and fight until total victory is proclaimed. The best source of encouragement we have in this world is at the remembrance of our Lord, dear Christian. We too have a fight on our hands, and it is not a fleshly one. We must be victorious, and never accept defeat from the enemy. The Lord is able to overcome any obstacle, or opposition that we will ever face, we must take heart and remember him. This has been the plea through the ages when the enemy has begun advancing his wicked forces, "remember the Lord". When we remember him it seems as though all the other problems around us begin to vanish into the the clouds, and there is nothing we cannot face if he is by our side. Alas though; we live so much of our time here in constant forgetfulness of all he has done for us. It seems that when the enemy attacks, all the days spent in the sunshine leave us and our memory is destroyed. It is at these times, even if we must force ourselves, we must "remember the Lord". There is no defeat on the Lords side of the battle, remember all the times he has taken you through the dark valleys, the dangerous woods, the lonely wildernesses; at these times while he walked with you, were these not the best times of your life? The Lord is able to handle all that you will face; so remember him today, and take courage and face whatever may come!

" Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." Cant. 4:7

What a wonderful exchange is taking place here between the bride and bridegroom. This is one of the most beautiful and intimate love stories ever written, truly it should be so. How we could lay all of the most beautiful, loving, kind and caring words we could smother our blessed redeemer with! He certainly deserves the fairest of the fair words our language, and vocabulary could afford to be placed on him, for he is worthy! How wonderful the grace of God is, he loves us while we are yet unlovely, and cares for us while we are yet dead in trespasses and sins. He deserves all the flowery titles we could place on him, and there is no good title undeserved to be placed on him. We could cry out at all times "Thou art all fair, my love!" and would never be in error. But wait; this passage is the Bridegroom speaking to the Bride!!! Oh how amazing that he would say such things about us: unworthy, unholy, profane, vile, dirty, wicked, sinful vagabonds and beasts! What a wondrous thought it is that when our Lord whose name is Holy and Reverend, views us he sees us as "all fair". When he views us he does not see how vile and pathetic our lives are, he sees us in total, and utter perfection, and righteousness. He does not overlook our faults, he actually places (imputes) his perfect righteousness on us. This righteousness is far greater than our filthy rags, and it is freely given us, through the price he paid for our souls. Oh how wonderful he sees us as spotless, holy, pure, white, clean, righteous. Whatever title we can place on him, he actually places on us!!!
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!!!!

"...and limited the Holy One of Israel." Ps78:41

What a sad statement for the Children of God; to limit their Heavenly Father! We see how Israel had all their needs met while in Egypt; then God pulls them from the furnace of affliction with a mighty hand, through the death of the firstborn and the sprinkling of blood. Then the people begin to murmur against God and Moses, and he tells them they will stay in the wilderness for 40 years until the whole generation is dead. While they are in the wilderness though, God takes wonderful care of them, so that nobody in 40 years starves to death in the wilderness! (That in itself is an unmatched feat of accomplishment.) But during all this time of God taking wonderful care of his people they still try to limit him. Why would the people of God try to limit him? We still see the same thing taking place in the world today, so many of the children of God have been miraculously provided for, yet they still say they cannot do what the Lord would have them to do. We must never be caught in this trap that the devil has laid for us. The Lord Jesus himself said that "with God nothing shall be impossible" and with that promise we can stretch out over the hottest flames of hell and be sure that God will not ever, under any circumstances fail us. What is it that the Lord would have you to do? don't limit him, whatever you do! If God wants it done he already has the resources needed to get it done. We can trust him, for his storehouse is full, and unlimited; and his grace is always sufficient. The cause of failure has never been his fault, but always because we limited him! Think about this, and see if you are limiting Him; if so, stop.

"What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" Lk 24:16

What manner of communications have you today? These disciples walking on this fateful journey were discouraged, and sad; how is it with you? As they walked along this road they discussed the recent events that had taken place in Jerusalem, they were not conversing about how the shedding of blood had just taken place, and now they have an eternal salvation and remission of sins, instead they were sad! The most important events of all history had just taken place, God himself became a man and bore the sins of mankind on the cross, and now he was come back from the dead justifying the faith of all those who trust in him; but the disciples are sad. Friend, understand without a shadow of a doubt, that when our faith grows weak concerning the resurrection of our Blessed Redeemer, we will be in despair. " If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" 1 Cor. 15:19. The resurrection is the very bedrock of our faith, and salvation. These disciples had not quite gotten the full concept of this principle yet, and therefore they were sad. They had been told that Mary had been to the tomb and saw the Angels and even got to see Christ briefly, and how Peter and John had a footrace down there and saw the stone rolled away and the body gone, but they were not sure what to make of these reports. What a wonderful opportunity we have at this season, as our hearts and minds tend to linger around the resurrection, to study it out, study it well, and gain all the insight and faith we need to carry us on in this life. We can be sure that our peace and joy both revolve around this wonderful subject, and we would be well advised to learn and love this subject, for wihtin it is the very key to salvation!

"I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth." Ps 34:1

The setting of this Psalm takes place at a rather difficult time in Davids life: when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed. David was in a great problem, Saul was seeking to kill him, and everywhere he turned Saul and his army were there. So David in his haste flees to a very strange place; Gath!!! That may not stick out to you until you remember where Goliath was from. So This is a pretty dumb move on Davids part to flee to the enemies territory. We often find though that God will suffer his chosen to be afflicted, but he would not allow them to be harmed. David upon realizing how desperate of a situation he was in works wisely to get out of the problem, and once removed penned this Psalm. We too will learn the praises of the Most High not through times of comfort and ease, but almost exclusively through troubles. We must understand that our God is not working only when we can see his leading, and feel the touch of his hand; but also through the dark times, when the demons of the night are surrounding our souls and hells hounds seem to be barking at our heels. We need at these times to lift up a song of praise, for these are the times when our soul needs most to praise our Great Redeemer. These are also the times when those around you will be most influenced by your praise as well. God wants to hear your praise; will you dedicate yourself that no matter what the situation is you face ( ease, adversity, indifference) that you will be found praising him?

"... give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully."

Oh how we must at all times be so wary! If we do not watch and mark well all of our steps, we will so quickly bring reproach to that Holy name by which we have been saved. The adversary is waiting, and lurking at all places, hoping, yea trying to get us to slip. We must give him no occasion to speak reproachfully. Satan and his forces in this world are going to say many grievous and hurtful things about us and our Saviour, let us never let there be any truth to what he assaults us with. We probably all know how terrible it feels when one lies about us; but what is many times worse is when there is truth to what they say! How can we dodge those arrows that are hurled at us, no matter how mean spirited they may be, when they are are burning with the flames of truth. The devil is marking your steps; when you slip secretly, he will make an open show publicly about it. We have quite a job ahead of us to never give him an opportunity to speak the truth of our faults, but the good news is that he that is in you is still greater than he that is in the world.(1Jn.4:4) If God would ask us to do a task, no matter how big or how small, he will always give us the strength to perform it. We must carefully, and prayerfully seek Gods face and strength daily, to guide us, so that we never would give the adversary any occasion. If we are counted worthy to suffer reproach for the cause of Christ we can count ourselves happy and blessed, but if it be for our own faults how damnable a curse this is!