A little Psalm With A Big Message!

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations;
    extol him, all you peoples.

2  For great is his love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord.[a] 

Psalm 117 NIV

Very little in it’s letter, is exceedingly large in it’s spirit, for bursting all bounds of race or nationality, it calls upon all mankind to praise the name of the Lord.

We are told WHAT to do in verse 1 and WHY to do in verse 2

The Lord is to be Magnified among the Nations

- God desires that all the Nations praise Him.

- Praise is a choice not a feeling

- The word Nations refers to: people groups, different ethnic and linguistic group.

- God desires that all the nations extol Him.

- His love is great for the people.

- God’s love toward the people is extremely great that He sent His Son to die on the cross.

- God’s faithfulness endures forever.

Application

- God magnifies Himself in the life of His people.

- God desire is to display His love in man and through man.

- To magnify God is to testify His love and His faithfulness to all people!

- Reaching out to the lost is through evangelism and mission.

Praise the Lord, ALL you schools nearby FGA; Extol Him, All you young people.
Personalized Psalms 117 NIV

This is our dream for Youth Church! Its not something new, it has been years we have been going to the schools.

Journey to the East is a compilation of the work of the Youth Church in Sarawak.

It takes DETERMINATION and CONSISTENCY to reflect the Heart of GOD to ALL PEOPLE.

- Pr. Anand Kumar

Bigger than Us

As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down on it.

At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, "I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I will give it to you and your descendants.
Genesis 28:12-13

A great ladder was let down from heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. In that dream Jacob got a new vision for his life. He saw that his life was meant to count for something, that he ought to go back, make peace with his brother, and live a better life.

Then I caught myself and realized that this was not exactly what the story implied. There were angels ascending, taking messages from earth up to the throne of God, but there were also angels descending. Angels were busy bringing messages down from heaven to earth.

Christians are those who believe in large, ambitious dreams. But our dreams are not exclusively self-derived. It is important for us to have a dream, some vision for what our lives ought to be. But we ought not to forget that in our dreaming, God is also dreaming. The story of Jacob's ladder implies not only that we have dreams of God but that God has dreams for us.

One of the great joys of Christian leadership is to be part of something larger than one's self. We are busy living out a career, but the word career doesn't do justice to the demands or the benefits of Christian service. One of the things that makes Christian leadership a great way to spend our lives is that we are busy living out the dreams of God. You are God's ambassador, God's instrument. You are an aspect of God's dream for the future. There is business, conversation, communication between heaven and earth, and your life is part of it.

We leaders ought to be reminded frequently of what a joy it is to have our little lives caught up in something bigger than ourselves.

—William Willimon

Reflection

Am I often tempted to lose sight of the larger picture God creates and keep narrowly focused on the daily nuts and bolts?