Aches and Praise Six Hundred & Six

Posted on 2023-04-20 in English |

April 20, 2023
 
 
Dear friends,  
 

While driving home from visiting family in the U.S. on Monday, Karen and I received a phone call from the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) to inform us that a bed was available. In recent months, I have had several tests and needed to have more. Since being admitted to MNI on Tuesday, I have received excellent care and have been resting more than I usually do. Thank you for your continued prayers as I seek to find out what is causing some memory loss and weight loss.

In Psalm 10, the psalmist expresses frustration that the Lord is not close to him (verse 1). He goes on to describe how the wicked don’t seek God (verse 4) and think “God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see” (v. 11). Do you sometimes feel that the Lord is far away from you? You and I can take comfort in reading the Psalms and being reminded that God cares for us much more than we can imagine. Dr. David Jeremiah notes that Psalm 10 “concludes with a triumphant assertion of faith: despite all seeming challenges, the Lord is King, and He does hear and answer the cry of the oppressed (Psalm 9:12 and 29:10).”

This week I have been reading “Let the Nations Be Glad!” by Dr. John Piper. The opening paragraph is “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”  I hope this whets your appetite to search the Scriptures (like the verses below) and see how great the Father’s love for mankind is.
 

Great and amazing are your deeds,                                                                                                

O Lord God the Almighty!                                                                                             

Just and true are your ways,                                                                                                         

O King of the nations!                                                                                                            

Who will not fear, O Lord,                                                                                                  

and glorify your name?                                                                                                    

For you alone are holy.                                                                                                         

All nations will come                                                                                                                       

and worship you,                                                                                                              

for your righteous acts have been revealed.

Revelation 15:3-4
 

Would you please join Karen and me in praying for Mrs. K, who is in the same room as me in the MNI? She was taken to the operating room this morning and is resting in “our” room now. I will be released tomorrow, Lord willing, and am scheduled to have another test in the near future.

May all that we do and say bring glory to the Lord!

Scripture for the weekend: “The Lord is King forever and ever” Psalm 10:16a (NKJV)

Thought for the weekend: “God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.” – John Piper (from his book “Let the Nations Be Glad!”)
 

By His grace,                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Steve

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