Daily Bible Verses for 5/12/2016

We Are God’s People – (Psalm 100:1-5)

Bible Verse
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.

Reading Notes
We are God’s people, adopted into the family of God as children because of our faith in Christ. And Jesus is our good and faithful shepherd. The Lord looks after us and has saved us, so we can spend eternity with Him rather than experiencing the punishment to come and facing eternity separated from God. The joy of our salvation causes us to come before Jesus with gladness in our hearts, singing praise to His glory and honor. And that’s the heart of the message of these passages, we not only praise God for what He has done for us through Christ. But we also praise God with our joyful service to the Lord. A service which stems from the love we have for Jesus, as we are led by the Holy Spirit, when we submit to His guidance. God’s mercy is everlasting, because it was God whose plan of redemption was put into place before the foundations of the world were laid down. From eternity past God has had our salvation in His heart. Before the foundation of the world was put into place, God personally knew us and chose us for His redemption through Christ. In addition, we must never forget God’s promises are everlasting. One of the attributes of God’s character is His immutability this means God’s promises will never wear out and they will never change.

His truth as revealed in His word, the Bible, is the solid foundation upon which we walk. It’s our privilege to spread the good news of the Gospel and the everlasting mercy found only in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of our faith in Jesus, we have been made righteous before God and now have access to enter into the courts of the Lord. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God “imputes” or freely credits the righteousness of Jesus to us. In other words, because of Jesus, we become righteous in the eyes of God. In addition, He sends us His spirit who lives inside of us, to watch over and walk with us until we go home to be with the Lord. In addition, with our salvation, God begins His process of spiritual growth in our lives. This process of spiritual growth is called “sanctification” and it’s a process carried out by the Holy Spirit who indwells all those who follow the Lord through faith. And as we grow in Christ, the Holy Spirit performs His work of sanctification in our hearts and minds, which changes us from the inside out. It’s the process of sanctification carried out by the Holy Spirit who changes us into devoted followers of Jesus as He makes us more sensitive to the things of God, which in turn brings more joy and peace to our lives, despite the chaos of the world around us.