Transform every moment of daily life into worship

Psalm 103 is a psalm of gratitude and it's one of my favorite psalms because it kind of covers so many things about why we have to be thankful to the Lord, why we have to thank the Lord. And I'm going to just read the first few verses and then maybe we'll have a chance to play some more of the rest of the psalm. It says Psalm 103, verse 1, why don't we read it together, the Reina Valera version of 1960 and read it with me.

“…Bless, my soul, Jehovah, and all my being, his holy name. Bless Jehovah, my soul, and do not forget any of his benefits. He is the one who forgives all your iniquities, the one who heals all your ailments, the one who rescues your life from the hole, the one who crowns you with favors and mercies, the one who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that you rejuvenate like the eagle…”

Glory to the Lord. How cute, right? We give that to our Heavenly Father tonight in gratitude for all the things that he does. The psalmist is always, especially David, always calling his soul, his inner being, his spirit to worship the Lord. When he is going through difficult situations he always speaks to his soul. In reality, the soul is many things at once, it may be... the Bible does not have a single word. The soul sometimes refers to the human part of the feelings, the will, the intelligence, the emotions, all this type of thing, but it can also be that highest faculty of the human being, that faculty is nobility that is in us, the spiritual part of us.

There is a passage that I also remember, one of the psalms where he says, why are you dejected, oh my soul, and are you troubled within me? Wait on God because I still have to praise him, my salvation, and my God.

It's like there's something inside of him that he wants to encourage to do something noble and good and important. And then he says, my soul, again he says, my soul praise Jehovah. So, one of the things that we always have to do is encourage ourselves to bless the Lord and thank the Lord.

Sometimes that is not something that comes naturally. Sometimes we are dejected, with problems in life, sometimes we are tired and we don't even smell the lilies, the most beautiful choir and the most beautiful music can come and we don't... because we are so exhausted, tired, troubled.

And at times like this what you want to do is just throw yourself on a bed and wrap yourself in the thickest blanket you can find, turn off the lights and close the windows, and nobody talk to me until this happens to me. And there are times when one has to say to his soul, My soul, praise the Lord.

He knows that sometimes adoration and praise and the expression of gratitude is not something that comes out of the flesh, but has to come out of something within us, of the spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ on another occasion when he was contemplating the cross in Gethsemane, spoke to the disciples and said, The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.

So there is a part of us that is the part that is most affected by the circumstances of life, by difficult, changing situations, one day it wants another day it doesn't, and if we let ourselves be carried away by that part of our being, we will never we would adore the Lord, we would never praise him.

By the way, if someone would be so generous, and give me a little water, I'll thank you. Thank you, Antonio, you always have to give him a medal for service. It's elegant too.

If one takes meat, brothers, the meat comes and goes. There is something interesting because many times when we are told to praise the Lord, we think like, you know what? I don't feel like praising the Lord, I'm depressed, I'm sad. If I praise God now or thank him it is hypocritical. Because we think that we have to feel something to do it, something noble.

The children of God do not live according to our feelings. The children of God live according to what we know to be true and what to do. And we do things because we have to do them and because it's good, and because it's appropriate, and we don't do some things because it's not good, it's not appropriate, it's not of God. We do not live enslaved to feelings and the flesh.

The natural man, the person not treated by God, the person who does not have that spiritual height that comes from being in continuous contact with the word of the Lord, meditate as we do day after day, continuously the things of the spirit, when we come here to the house of the Lord. Do you know how exceptional it is that we come to the house of the Lord and be instructed morally, ethically, spiritually, time after time, on Sundays, Wednesdays, discipleship classes? Let me tell you that this is not done by all human beings.

This instruction that you and I receive as members of the body of Jesus Christ, moral instruction about how to behave, how to treat others, how to relate to God, eternity, the nature of heaven, hell, demons, angels , that type of material that we consume and process day after day, it is an incredible privilege that you are receiving teaching that is not received at Harvard or in the great universities of this world, my brother. Do you know that the children of God if we truly take advantage of what is given to us, we have a moral, spiritual and ethical education, like very few beings?

And one of the things that one learns as children of God is not to depend on the flesh, on the instincts, on the animal, carnal, earthly nature, as the Apostle Santiago says that we have, and to connect with a dimension and a higher faculty, which is the faculty of the spirit, the moral faculty, the ethical faculty. Not acting by what the flesh tells us, but acting by what the spirit tells us, by what we know up here.

As the Lord Jesus Christ says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So, the children of God live by what God has declared, not by the appetite of the stomach or the human carnal senses. We have to ask the Father every day, Lord, help me to live according to the highest faculties of humanity. And one of them is to worship and glorify and bless the name of the Lord.

So we cannot depend on what the flesh tells us. That is why I believe that the psalmist says, bless the Lord, my soul, in other words, you have to learn that blessing the Lord is necessary, it is good, it is profitable, it is inevitable. Says the Lord Jesus Christ, if men did not worship me, the stones would. God has to be worshipped. God has to be exalted, has to be blessed, and if I just stayed on that tonight it would be enough for us.

While we were singing one of the songs, it was like the second or the third, but it was eminently a song of adoration, of praise to the Lord, and I said, if some people entered the church without knowing anything about adoration, and it's more , many who are in the church, do not understand what this is to sing to the Lord. Why do we come to church and worship and sing and say to the Lord, you are good, bless you, thank you for your goodness? A number of things that we say to the Father, you think, why do you have to do that? Unless you have not been educated in what is important, why worship the Lord? Why do we do that? How odd.

You sing to a being you have never seen and say thank you, you are almighty, holy, just, good, and you are singing those things, and unless you don't understand why you have to do that, and why it's important , one is then like a parrot who is simply doing things because that is how evangelicals do it and I am an evangelical and so it has to be done.

But I want you to understand tonight why it is important to thank the Lord, bless his name, exalt him and glorify him. And it is because God is a creator, God is a creative, creative spirit, he has created everything that exists, he has created us, he has created the earth, the fish, the diversity of beings that populate the earth, the incredible wealth of the planets and galaxies, the atom, the worm that crawls on the earth, the elephant with its immense size, the eagle that flies through the air, the germ that is hidden under a little piece of leaf in a forest, under of a rock that no one sees. All this has been created by God.

And he sees everything, and he knows the structure of each of those things intimately, he knows the smallest details and he can see the galaxies with their beauty. Have you seen a picture of a galaxy taken thousands and thousands of light years away? How weird is that. It looks like animals many times, they have strange shapes. Those solitary things that are lost in the immensity of the universe, over there, stars, planets, meteors, black holes that only cosmologists and physicists understand. All of this was created by God.

He is the eminently creative spirit. Now hear this for me. It is the first point, the very nature of God is to create, to make things. He creates like no other creator. Why does man create? Why is it that man has such an appetite for creativity? Why does man like to make paintings, sculptures, write pieces of music, make beautiful buildings, a scarf like the one my sister has on with different colors? Why do women adorn themselves with a necklace, an earring? Where does this appetite that human beings have for creativity come from? It comes from above, from the Father, God made us in his image and likeness.

So just as God likes to create, we like to create. Do you know why we like to create? Because our Dad, who made us and gave us his spiritual genetics, we are a reflection of him. Just as Papa creates by nature, so man creates, he likes to create ships that cross space, submarines that go into the depths of the sea, laser beams that finely cut flesh to perform an operation, penetrate an eye.

And each person who creates there is something that he likes for them to do and that is that they praise what he has created, and that they praise his creativity. Do you know why artists create and architects create, scientists discover things, and astronauts risk their lives? For the glory that comes from it. Do you know why an astronaut goes to the moon? Because he wants that for the rest of his life, he can tell his grandchildren, I was on the moon, and read a newspaper one day and say, oh, such an astronaut was on the moon. Why does a soldier jump at one point and face the enemy and pick up and throw 10 grenades and save his friends from certain death? Because there is a medal. Why does the army give out medals? Because the man likes credit. That is natural to us.

What housewife doesn't like it when she makes a good dish, people lick their fingers at how good it was and say, hey, how good is that sancocho! How good is anything, whatever! We like to be told good things about what we do. That is the nature of the creator and where do we inherit that? From the creator par excellence, the Father.

Understand this, it is that what justifies the creativity of a being is that there are witnesses who see it and admire it and are amazed at the creativity that exists in that being that is doing that. When you hear a pianist perform a piece with absolute skill, that pianist as he plays he derives a certain joy and pleasure from knowing that people are looking at him and saying, wow, what a skill he has.

People may not say it at the moment but while he plays he feels the eyes caressing his body saying, how beautiful! And he receives a little from each person and then when they applaud him or he stands up because he has done something extraordinary. And that's not bad, it depends... Now, the good thing is when the pianist who does that says, Lord, that comes from you and I give you the final credit. It's good that I have it, you've given me that gift, how good, but finally that gift comes from you, it's a gift, it's a gift.

It doesn't matter that it passes by you and stays there for a while and caresses you and then goes straight to the Father, the bad thing is when men grab it and like people who smoke a cigarette and swallow the smoke instead of throwing it away and address it to the Lord, that is the problem. Most men get the glory for themselves. But how nice it is when it touches you, tickles you and then goes on to the Father.

What I mean, brothers, is that, all of us have that creative instinct inside of us and we like to be told, you've done well, you have something special inside of you. That comes to us... that's why I understand why God likes to be praised. Now, praising God is not like praising a human artist, praising God is the sum of that act of praising here and telling him, how good, how good, when applied to God it is multiplied by a thousand and a thousand and a thousand. , and then it has its full meaning when applied to the Father. Here is just a small sample of what we do in a total and absolute way with respect to the Creator par excellence that is God.

So, when we go down to the church again, when we are saying to the Lord, my heart sings the song, how great he is, when you say that, you are putting that feeling into words, you are great, you are beautiful, You are immeasurable, there are no words that can encompass what you are. And the quintessential creator, who has taught us to delight in our own little creations, he gets that.

And he rejoices, because that's what a creator does. That's what an artist does. But when God does it, there's not an iota of carnal pride or anything, it's just that it's a mystery of creation that God is praised by his creatures and they tell him, he likes that. It's that we... everything that exists is because God sees it, and because God gives meaning to it. So when we praise the Lord, we thank him for everything he does and we bless him, we are doing what everything that exists has been created for. And let us be that creature, of all the creatures that God has made, that we can adore him with almost the same lucidity with which he would do about himself, because there is no other creature, a lion, perhaps when it roars it is adoring the Lord We don't know, but imagine the wealth when a man or a woman worships with all their mental, emotional, spiritual complexity, when they worship God, that worship has a value that no other creature worships or praises him.

And that's why he created us. The only reason why you and I exist, ultimately, is to worship the Lord and to glorify him. So, I believe that the most powerful, most potent, most significant act that any human being can carry out in his entire life is to adore the Lord. What makes us eminently human and valuable is being able to adore the Lord. Everything else is secondary, that is why the most exalted scientist, the most developed intellectual, if he does not recognize God and does not praise him and adore him, and does not serve him, and does not give him the place he deserves, is like a brute, a beast of the field. With all his intellectual greatness... that intellectual greatness doesn't go over the ceiling.

Now, when we adore the Lord, we go beyond time, space, we reach eternity, the absolute, even the realm of the spirit, and our worship travels the greatest distances, reaching the throne of God. And then we fulfill our true destiny, to be worshipers for which we were created. So when you worship the Lord you are entering exactly what God created you for, for his glory and honor and to worship him.

The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament announces the work of his hands. Everything that exists glorifies the Lord in one way or another, and when God looks at him, when he looks at the little worm putting its little mouth between the grains of earth, and getting into the depths, he laughs and delights in it. There is something insignificant about the worm that we look at and it disgusts us, but the Lord, seeing him from his throne, from his eternity, he likes that because he invented it to do that. And the worm has its place, it has its reason for being and it has its function, it is not created. Even the mosquitoes, one wonders why, my God, please. But I believe that there is something in the mosquito that if we could see it as God sees it, it would justify it.

Now, we [inaudible] maybe God, in his sense of humor, gave us mosquitoes to keep us busy on a boring night in a field in Santo Domingo, so you don't fall asleep. Everything has a meaning and everything exists to glorify and praise the name of the Lord. That is why when we come to the house of the Lord, we sing a hymn, we sing a choir, we raise our hands, we give thanks to the Lord, remember that, we are doing what the angels do, what the 24 elders do, when they prostrate and place their crowns at their feet. They are 24 or 12, if they are 12, they should be 24. They are 24 I think. 12 is perfect but it takes double perfection.

When the 24 elders, these incredible beings and we don't know who they are exactly, if they are human, if they are a special creation of God, they are angels, we don't know, 24 elders, with their crowns of authority, prostrate her at the feet of the almighty . Everything exists for that and in eternity every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The nature of the redeemed eternity is to be able to adore the Lord in different ways, everything that humanity does in all its creativity, in eternity will be to adore and glorify the name of the Lord.

There no one will keep the glory, we will always throw it back to the Lord, we will give it to him. And when we are here on earth, remember that well, every Sunday that you come to the house of the Lord, when you sing a hymn, when you say something to the Father, remember well why you do it, because for that you was created.

And when a congregation like ours delights, I thank the Lord that Sunday after Sunday our appetite for worship grows. We delight ourselves and the only reason why I sometimes stop worship is because as a pastor I know that there are many other things that have to be done as well, as a housewife I have to do many other things, there is time for the word, worship , to collect tithes and offerings, definitely, you have to give announcements, you have to put your hands on the heads of the babies when we present them. There are many things that have to be done, but I would love it if we simply stayed adoring the Lord, praising, raising our hands, glorifying him, praying for him, but one thinks that in the visits, that in the old lady who is noisy the praise, that the new one who has short patience for the duration of the service, whatever, one as a pastor his antennas are in 20 thousand places and you have to do a little bit of everything. And that is also worshiping the Lord.

When a lot of people get upset, oh, that the pastor cut off worship, we should have continued because if we had already reached the throne of grace, what do I know? Look brother, I believe that God enjoys everything we do, even the announcements adore the Father and glorify him because the Father hears them and says, wow, how busy my people are doing good things for me. God glorifies himself in everything, the child who receives the teacher's teaching, the usher who is solicitous, because everything is well and who shows love by taking someone to the chair, breathing in all of that, glorifying himself in all of that.

The brother Roberto Naranjo who takes his measuring tape and makes sure that the chairs are all well aligned, the Lord is being glorified with that. The sister, the brother who brings his plate of food for lunches and those who fix it and prepare it, the Lord is to glorify. Do you think that glorifying the Lord is just singing? Glorifying God for all things, again, the worm worships the Lord and glorifies him because it is his creation. The lion when it roars in the jungle, the tiger when it pounces on a servant or an antelope and tears it apart, even in that so rare and so terrible, it is glorifying God, because God put an instinct in it.

And even when the animal decomposes in the jungle and returns and enters the ground and serves as fertilizer so that bushes and everything can grow, that process glorifies the Lord. And likewise when we come together, everything we do glorifies the Lord, the thoughts that are there while we sit, our silent and mute confession that no one hears, our humiliation before God, the hand we put around someone because God He gave us a word of comfort that we want to share with him or her, the coin or the check that we put in the offering basket, the handshake that we give to the visitor, when we get up from the seat so that another person sits in it, all that is glorifying the Lord, it is not just singing.

It is good and precious and we must do it, but understand brothers, that everything we do in that sacred moment of preparing the environment and worshiping the Lord, God is receiving all of this, is part of worship. We have to broaden, the Lord tells me, the meaning of adoration, don't think that when you stop singing the praise is over. Praise continues and then when you go home and you continue there in your own devotion or when you go to bed and your last word is to the Lord, when you get up to do the work of a loving father, a husband, or a member of some city team that keeps the city running, is praising the Lord.

If you understand what you are doing and give it to him, tell him, Father, this is my offering to you, you can transform your work life into adoration, you can transform your thinking life into adoration and prayer and love Mr. You can, everything you do can become a symphony of praise, your life itself can be adoration of the Lord, if at all times you are aware that you exist and you are and have because everything comes from God and you must return it to him to him in praise.

And you are a continuous vibration. The cells that move within your body say, my soul, glorify and praise the Lord. So, I encourage you and I was going to talk about something else but I think we have more than enough there. Why do we praise? And what does it mean to worship the Lord? And what understanding do I have of the complexity and the comprehensiveness of worship and that worship is the most important thing that I can do, that a church can do, a community can do, humanity can do, because that's what we were created for. And the very nature of God as a creator, as an infinite artist is to delight in each of his creations.

When you write a poem, even if no one is going to read it, don't you delight in reading it again? And he says, wow, look how good it turned out on me? right yes? Some smile because they know what I'm talking about. And that is what happens, when God looks over his creation and sees them working as he designed them, he does not get tired of examining us and saying, I created this and then when that creation becomes aware of it, and magnifies that act of adore, adding reflection and awareness, then it is like a mirror looking at another that multiplies infinitely.

When we consciously adore the Lord what we do, without realizing it, now we are doing it multiplied and that is why when we come to the house of God, this has an incredible capacity, when a people unites, each one with their awareness that they should adore to the Lord is good, that is then infinitely multiplied, mirror after mirror after mirror reflecting each other in an infinite way, each one of us raising a song of praise and adoration to the Lord.

That's why tonight we come and say, Father, thank you, everything we have comes from you. That is how beautiful what the psalmist says, bless my soul, Jehovah and bless my whole being, mind, soul, body, heart, spirit, will, memory, bless my whole being his holy name, bless, my soul, Jehovah.

And don't forget any of its benefits. On this night we do not want to forget a single one of the benefits that he has given us, not a single one of the rewards that he has given us, not a single one of the deals that he has had with us. Everything that God does in our life is good and deserves to be pointed out, deserves to be praised, recognized. My brother, my sister, that tonight the purpose of being a worshiper, a praiser, be renewed in your heart, that your life always be a continuous applause for the Father, the creator par excellence, for all the good things that he does in your life. life. Worship Him with an awareness that in your worship you are getting into the very axis, the very center of your nature and the purpose for which you were created.

There is nothing that you can do that has more meaning, more importance, more sublimity than to adore the Lord and give him thanks and recognize what he is, and point out his attributes. May the Lord bless us tomorrow, may this dynamic of adoration and praise continue.

That psalm is in a chorus that I don't know if John knows, it says: Bless my soul, the Lord, and... maybe you can get it. We're going to sing that psalm and we'll catch it when we can.

Bless the Lord my soul and bless my being, his holy name, bless the Lord my soul and do not forget any of his benefits. He is the one who forgives your iniquities, the one who heals all your ailments, the one who rescues your life from the hole, and who crowns you with mercy. Yes, my soul bless the Lord, and bless my being, his holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget any of its benefits. He is the one who forgives your iniquities, the one who heals all your ailments, the one who rescues your life from the hole, and who crowns you with mercy. Yes, my soul bless the Lord, and bless my being, his holy name. Bless the Lord my soul and bless my being, his holy name, bless the Lord my soul and do not forget any of his benefits. He is the one who forgives your iniquities, the one who heals all your ailments, the one who rescues your life from the hole, and who crowns you with mercy. Yeah.

Thank you, Lord, we adore you, this people adore you, Father, tonight, we pay tribute to you, Lord. We exalt your name and recognize your greatness, Lord, your many favors, your benefits, your mercy. Thank you for pulling us out of the hole when we get into trouble ourselves, you pull us out.

Thank you for forgiving all our iniquities, thank you because you are our healer of all ailments, from headaches to cancer, Lord. You heal all our ailments, so that we rejuvenate like the eagle, Lord. Thank you for all your benefits and your kindness.

Glorify yourself Lord in our lives, glorify yourself in this congregation, Father, that we never forget the importance of praising you, that our hearts are always filled, Father, with an insatiable appetite for adoration and that we always walk humbly before you.

Thank you for your mercy, as the father pities his children, you pity us. As the east is far from the west, so you have removed from us all our rebellions, Father. It's good, you didn't keep them, you threw them away, Lord, away. Thank you for your love tonight, we bless you, we glorify you.

Bless your people, pour out your spirit on them and Father, tonight give us a peaceful sleep, tomorrow help us to be peaceful, whatever our condition, our situation, we are alone, we are with many people around us, you never bothered us. you leave, you are always with us, you love us. We love you. Thank you because you have an exceptional destiny for each of us, you have not forgotten, you have good things for your children, we love you, we bless you.

Thank you, Father, we are so grateful to you, Lord, for all your mercies, your grace, your love, incomparable unending, without limit, Father, you are so gracious to us, and tonight we are so grateful to you. Receive our prayers, receive our worship.

Glorify yourself, Lord, our lives. We love you. we bless you Thank you Lord, in the name of Jesus, the people of God say. Amen. I bless you, my brothers. The grace of the Lord be with you.