Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving
Psalm 50
Have you ever heard of Michael J Fox? Family Ties- Back to the future.
He also has Parkinson’s Disease. He’s had it for about 10 years,
and its getting progressively worse.
He said in his book that "if you made a deal with God that he would take away my Parkinson’s disease and cancel out the last ten years of my life, I would tell you to take a hike. My life is so good now. I’m helping a lot of people cope with the stigma of this disease. And it makes me appreciate life as a precious gift."
We’re all amazed
when someone with a debilitating disease
can have such a positive attitude,
and actually thank God for it.
That’s hard for us to understand, isn’t it?
How can you thank God,
when things are going badly in life?
There’s an Christian author named Frank Foglio,
who tells about how his daughter was injured in a car accident.
Her brain was severely damaged, and despite hundreds of people praying for her, her condition grew steadily worse.
Finally she had to be placed in the hopeless ward of an institution for the mentally ill. 7 years after the accident, things had not improved. In fact his daughter had once clawed her way out of a straitjacket and tried to hang herself with a bedsheet.
The absolute hopelessness of the situation had started to take its toll on Frank, and his faith started to waver.
On one very difficult journey to the institution, Frank was arguing with God.
"How could You be a God of love? I wouldn’t permit such a thing to happen to my daughter if I had the power to prevent it. You could heal her. But You won’t. Don’t You love people as much as even I do? You must not."
Frank felt his anger rising against God.
"Praise Me," a Voice said to him. "What for?" Frank replied.
"Praise Me that your daughter is where she is."
"Never!" he spit out. "I would rather die than do that."
God had no right to ask him to praise Him, when God wasn’t doing His own job of showing His love for people.
The Voice said again, "Thank Me that your daughter is exactly where she is,"
Frank said, "God, I couldn’t praise You if I tried. And I’m not going to try, because I don’t believe I should."
As Frank continued toward the mental home, the Holy Spirit worked in his heart, and he felt his attitude begin to soften. He said, "Well, God, I would praise You if I could - but I just can’t."
A little further along, he confessed, "I would praise You, but You would have to help me."
After arriving at the institution. Frank went through the procedures to get clearance to get into the most restricted part of one of the buildings. It always took a long while to get into his daughter’s ward. Sometimes, he wondered why he continued to come. His daughter didn’t recognize him. She didn’t know him from a stone on the ground.
Finally, Frank was in the last waiting room, the one that separated him from the ward. One steel door remained to be opened. Standing before it, Frank Foglio heard the calm and firm voice of God one more time:
"Thank Me that your daughter is exactly where she is."
Frank, finally whispered his surrender:
"Okay, God. I thank You that my daughter is where she is. I know that You love her more than I do."
At that moment a vaguely familiar voice cried out, "I want my daddy, I want my daddy."
The attendant opened the door, and Frank raced to his daughter’s compartment. Clothed in her right mind, she threw out her arms and embraced her father. Nurses, attendants, and guards gathered around in disbelief and joy.
Goes on – Daughter was able to come home that day, after 7 years.
Why would God ask someone
to praise Him for a terrible situation like that.
Good question.
We’re going to try to figure that out today.
This message may stretch you a little.
it’s a little deeper than what we sometimes cover on Sundays,
Some of you may not really understand it,
I’m not sure I really do completely,
but some of you’ll get it.
We’re in a series on the greatest Psalms,
and today I want to look at Psalm 50.
If you have your bible turn there.
Psalm 50 NAS
(Prelude, vs. 1-6 Summarize – God has something really important to say, so you better listen up)
Vs. 7-13 (God’s message to his followers)
7 "Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you; I am God, your God. 8 "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, And your burnt offerings are continually before Me. 9 "I shall take no young bull out of your house, Nor male goats out of your folds. 10 "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. 11 "I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. 12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all it contains. 13 "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of male goats?
(I don’t need your sacrifices and offerings, because everything in the world already belongs to me)
14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High; 15 And call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me. "
(Vs. 16-22: God’s message to the wicked – Summary - shape up your you’ll be in trouble)
(Summary)
23 "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God."
The main theme of this Psalm,
is that God is not satisfied with religion as usual.
He says,
I’ve had it up to here with your sacrifices,
they don’t mean anything to me.
If he was talking to us today,
he’d say,
I’ve had it with your Sunday-only religion,
thinking that if I just show up at church once in a while,
and tell people that I’m a Christian,
the God will be satisfied.
He says,
that kind of surface religion
is not what I want.
Then he says,
Here’s what I do want,
I want you to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
What in the world is he talking about there.
What does it mean to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving?
This relates directly back to the sacrifices in the OT.
So to figure this out we have to start there.
In the OT law of Moses,
God gave instructions for a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
or it was usually called the thank offering.
Leviticus 3:1-5, 7:12-15
if a person wanted to offer God a thank offering, 3 things were required.
The person had to offer: (1) an sheep or goat that had no defect, injury or disease (unblemished)
(2) bread, wafers and cakes made without yeast and mixed with oil, and (3) bread made with yeast.
Each of these represented something different.
First,
The sheep or goat would be sacrificed and its blood poured out,
and the fat burned,
The blood represented the life of the animal,
and the fat was considered the best part,
given to God.
and that was a foreshadowing that represented the life and blood of Jesus Christ,
that was sacrificed for us.
It was pointing ahead to the time, when Jesus would come and offer His body and blood on the cross,
to open the door so we can have a loving relationship with God.
The 2nd part of the offering was cakes of bread and wafers made without yeast or leaven.
This unleavened bread and wafer represented holiness or a state of being absolutely pure, Because in the Bible, leaven or yeast always represents sin.
So this second part of the offering,
pointed ahead as a symbol of the holiness and purity of Jesus Christ who never sinned,
and lived a perfect life.
And these cakes of bread were to be mixed and spread with oil. and oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit.
So, all three persons of the trinity are represented in this offering:
(1) God the Father to whom the offering is given, (2) Jesus represented by the unleavened bread and (3) the Holy Spirit represented by the oil.
Now there was one more part of the thank offering,
I mentioned the sheep or goat,
the unleavened bread,
and then the third part of the offering was cakes of bread made with yeast or leaven.
This represented the person offering it, that is the sinner…
you and I.
This is symbolically saying,
God, you’ve done so much for me,
You’ve given me all that I have,
and I not only thank you,
but I give myself to you.
That’s what the offering,
of this leavened bread was really saying.
So God set up this system in the OT so that people would be giving him thanks, on a regular basis,
by sacrificing to him.
But then in Psalm 50
God says,
Ok, I’ve had it with your sacrifices,
they’re meaningless,
because your heart is not in it,
your heart is not honoring me.
He says I don’t need your sacrificed animals,
12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all it contains. 13 "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of male goats?
He says, no, that’s not what I want.
Instead,
14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and then he repeats in verse 23
"He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me;
So he’s saying,
what really important is not the sacrifice of meat or bread,
but the heart attitude of thanksgiving.
Now of course, that’s in the OT,
so it doesn’t apply to us today,
right?
Wrong.
If we turn to the NT book of Hebrews,
Hebrews is sort of like an instruction manual
on how the OT prepared the way for Christ,
and it tells us how the OT law has been fulfilled in Christ,
and in
Heb 13:15
Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.
So its telling us here,
OK, Jesus fulfilled the requirement for that original thank offering
that God commanded in Leviticus,
You don’t have to offer the meat,
and unleavened bread,
and leavened bread any more.
But here’s what you do instead.
There’s still a sacrifice.
God still wants you to offer a sacrifice,
but its different now.
let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.
Now if things in your life are going great,
and God is really blessing you,
and you thank him and praise him for it,
is that a sacrifice?
No. It comes naturally.
If somebody gives you a great gift,
and you thank him
that’s not a sacrifice.
But if life is hard and nothing seems to be going right,
and you just had a big fight with your husband or wife,
and your kids room is buried two feet deep under dirty laundry,
plus they just brought home a report card with an F on it,
or maybe the doctor called, and it looks bad,
or your boss is being a pain in the rear end,
and then you praise God anyway,
in the midst of all that,
is that a sacrifice?
You better believe it.
That’s tough.
That does not come natural.
I have a hard time doing that.
I’ve got to do something that I don’t feel like doing.
I’ve got to sacrifice my natural desire,
to whine and moan and complain,
and I’ve got to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
And God tells us,
that’s what he really wants from us.
And he wants us to do it continually.
In every circumstance.
No matter what comes along.
No matter how hard it seems.
Continually.
Martin Luther (one of the greatest Christian leaders of all time)
“It is clear that a sacrifice must consist of praise and thanks, or must at least not be without praise and thanks, if it is to please God. And if it is without praise and thanks, He neither wants nor likes it. We cannot give God anything; for everything is already His, and all we have comes from Him. We can only give Him praise, thanks, and honor.”
Author Frederick Buechner said:
“If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.”
What he has just described right there,
is the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,
which is the sacrifice that God wants from each of us.
The bible tells us over and over
that this is what God wants from us,
at all times.
1 Thess 5:18 Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Notice it says, in "all" circumstances.
Do you want to know God’s will for your life?
It’s right there.
God says, “I want you to be thankful, no matter what the circumstances.” Be thankful in all circumstances.
Now it doesn’t say "for all circumstances". You can’t always be thankful for the circumstances, but you can be thankful in the situation.
Because you know that God is working all things for good. He has a pattern and He fits even the bad things in our lives into that pattern for good.
God’s purpose for my life
is greater than my problems, so in everything I can give thanks. Not for but in.
Of course there are things in your life that you’re not satisfied with. There are some things in your job
that you don’t like. There are some things in your marriage that you don’t like.
There are some habits in your friends
or your boss
your mate, your children, or yourself
that you don’t like.
This doesn’t mean you become satisfied with what is bad,
but that you learn to praise and thank God,
whatever the circumstances,
your attitude isn’t controlled by your circumstances.
That’s the kind of sacrifice God wants.
We see this attitude all over the Bible.
Eph 5:19-20
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 4:16
If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God…
Colossians 3:16-17
Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t do this to well.
This is telling us that thankfulness and praise
should be the constant attitude of my heart.
No matter what you’re doing, no matter what’s going on in your life, no matter what your circumstances, you are supposed to be thankful,
and praise God for it.
Now, is that the way it usually works? No.
When things are going well, we’re thankful.
When things are going badly, we’re not. We complain and whine and moan about how badly life is treating us.
But God’s Word says, “be thankful in all circumstances”. God says “always giving thanks”. God says, “whatever you’re doing, give thanks”.
Whether you’re eating dinner at a nice restaurant or cleaning the toilet, give thanks.
Whether you get a promotion and raise, or get a pick slip and shown the door, be thankful.
Whether you’re strong and healthy and full of life, or sick and diseased, give God praise.
Whether your marriage is rewarding and satisfying, or whether it’s a painful struggle, give thanks.
I don’t know about you,
but to me,
the whole idea of thanking and praising God,
when things are going badly,
is one of the more difficult things
that God asks me to do.
And maybe you’re asking,
How can I praise and thank God,
when I’m having a bad hair day?
I like to read history.
The Thirty Years War in Germany
from 1618-1648
was possibly the worst war in the history of mankind in terms of the sheer number of deaths, not only from battles but from epidemics and starvation,
Historians estimate that the population of central Europe
dropped from 21M to 13.5M during the war.
Toward the end of the war In 1636 there was a pastor whose name was Martin Rinkert. In a single year, this pastor buried 5,000 people —
he was the only pastor left in his city
He averaged 15 funerals a day, but sometimes did as many as 50.
Horrible time.
During that time he wrote one of the best loved thanksgiving hymns:
(we sang it at our Community Thanksgiving service)
"Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done,
In whom his world rejoices."
If I’d spent the year holding 5,000 funerals for the people that lived all around me, could I write a song praising and rejoicing in God?
I don’t know.
But I do know,
That is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
In every situation, we are to have an attitude of thankfulness toward God.
Why would God ask us to do that? Because I’ll admit right now, that doesn’t describe me very well.
I have a long way to go before I can claim to be maintaining a thankful heart in any and all circumstances.
Why would God tell us to do this?
Why would He tell us to maintain an attitude of thankfulness even when the bottom is falling out?
Let me give you three reasons.
The first reason for continual praise and thanksgiving, is that
1. THE WORLD IS WATCHING
How many parents, have ever had to repeat something to your child because they weren’t listening the first time? Kids have very selective hearing, don’t they.
They hear only what they want to hear.
On the other hand,
How many parents have ever said something that you wished your child hadn’t heard, because you knew they would repeat it to others?
Little kids will say anything.
I remember a while ago standing on the side of a street
watching a parade,
and there’s a mother holding her 2 year old boy,
and he points at the man next to him,
and says loud enough for everyone around to hear,
Mommy, why is that man so ugly?
You’ve got to be careful what you say around little kids,
because you know they’re going to repeat it at the worst time.
It’s like the story of the little boy, who goes up to the preacher after the service and tells him, “When I grow up and get a job, I’m going to give you some of my money.” The preacher pats him on the head and replies, “Well, that’s awful nice of you son, but why would you want to do that?” The boy replies, “Because when you were preaching I heard my daddy whisper to mommy, “that’s the poorest preacher, I’ve ever heard.”
When you don’t want kids to hear something,
guaranteed, they hear it,
When you ask them to come to dinner, for the 8th time,
Oh, I didn’t hear you.
The same thing is true
of what Christians communicate
to the world around us.
The world seems to ignore the “good news” when we try to share with them, but they seem to be all ears
when negative circumstances come along:
There’s a story in the bible:
Paul and Silas are trying to share the good news about Jesus,
in the town of Philippi, Greece,
and the crowd gets mad at them.
Acts 16:22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
Notice,
when they’re trying to share the good news,
nobody listens.
But when their circumstances turn painful,
and they’re beaten half to death,
and sitting in stocks in the jail,
then people are listening.
For some reason,
When our circumstances turn from good to bad, that’s when the world is most likely to be watching our lives,
and noticing what we’re really like,
when the pressure is on,
and how much faith we really have.
Basically, suffering provides you and I, the greatest opportunity to demonstrate the power of our faith.
If we’re grateful and joyful
only when things are going good then how are we any different than the world?
What do we have that they would want?
Matthew 5:14 Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
If you want your light to shine,
If you want to be used by God to bring people around you to Christ,
Then the first step is to continually have an attitude of thanksgiving, even when things aren’t going good for you – because that’s when you’ve got their attention.
Some of you have heard me talk about
how I went to the Naval Academy for college.
There’s a U.S. Marine Corps General named Charles Krulak who graduated from there a few years before me.
After the Naval Academy he went to Quantico VA for marine basic school,
and his roommate there was a Christian,
named John Listerman.
Krulak wrote about that time.
He says,
John was a wonderful human. He exuded goodness. If I asked him for his arm, he would have said, "Where do you want me to cut it off?
And John was a Christian. That meant nothing to me other than Gee, what a nice guy. I guess this Christian stuff must be pretty good.
John and I joined the same battalion preparing to go to Vietnam. And I saw another side of John Listerman: he was a tremendous leader—
aggressive and technically proficient. People loved him. He was committed to his troops; his troops were committed to him. He was a Marine’s Marine.
On a December morning in 1965 John and I went to war. John Listerman’s war lasted one day.
We were on patrol moving down a trail through the jungle. We came around a corner in that trail, and we ran into an ambush. John took the first round, a 50-caliber round right in his kneecap. As his kneecap burst, the crack was so loud it sounded like a mortar exploding. It threw him up in the air. As he was dropping, the second round hit him right below the heart and exited out his side. I was wounded also but nowhere near as badly. I saw John about 30 meters away on his back, his leg blown off. I crawled up to him, and I wanted to say, "Are you okay? Can I do anything?" but before I could do that, his head turned to me and he said, "How are you doing, Chuck? Are you okay?" I said, "Yes, John. I’m okay." He said, "Are my men safe?" I said, "John, your people are okay." At that point he turned his head and looked to the sky and repeated over and over, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for caring for my people. Thank you for caring for me."
I was dumbfounded.
Just to finish the story,
(John Listerman and Charles Krulak were evacuated. Both of them lived,
Krulak later became a Christian.)
I think about that story and it makes me think,
Hey, if this guy can thank God,
when his leg has just been blown off,
then I certainly should be able to thank God in my little problems and trials and difficulties.
And when we do that,
people are watching,
and they’re going to realize that God has changed us,
He has made us different.
That’s the first reason why God wants us to give Him continual praise and thanksgiving,
because the world is watching to see if we’re really any different.
The second reason is, 2. SATAN IS WATCHING
I Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
As Christians,
we have a spiritual enemy, Satan,
and Peter compares him to a lion,
prowling around,
looking for someone to devour.
Now lets see how many of you watch Animal Planet on cable.
When a lion is stalking a herd of antelope,
or zebra,
or any other animal,
What kind of animals do lions most often go after?
The weak, the injured and the sick.
Because they’re the easiest targets.
Satan is like a prowling lion,
and he’s looking for weak people to attack.
Guess what tips Satan off and lets him know that might be easy targets,
that our suffering has weakened us?
When he hears our praise turn to complaining, and our thanksgiving turn to whining,
then he knows we’re easy targets.
He says, All right, I’ve got dinner tonight.
You see, Satan can’t read your mind.
He is not like God,
He doesn’t know what you’re thinking.
So if he hears you thanking and praising God,
out loud,
and acting like you’ve got mountains of faith,
he may just be fooled into thinking you’re a spiritual giant
and leave you alone.
Peter warns us to be careful, to be on our guard, to watch out for Satan’s attempts to devour us.
He tells us to resist Satan by standing firm in the faith.
How do you resist the devil and stand firm in your faith,
You thank and praise God, even when it looks like there’s nothing left to thank Him for.
You see, when Satan sees our attitude turn bad,
and our thanksgiving disappear at the first sign of suffering, then he turns up the heat all the more.
Like a lion listening for the sound of a wounded gazelle, Satan listens for us to gripe and complain, he listens for the sounds of us showing that we have no faith,
or no trust in God,
or no gratitude for the good things God has given us.
Corrie Ten Boom wrote a book about
her experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp,
She and her sister were assigned to Barracks number 28. And it was infested with fleas. It was almost unbearable.
Well one night, they started a secret bible study,
and they read the same scripture I read earlier:
"Give thanks in all circumstances."
And Corrie’s sister said, "God wants us to thank him for the fleas."
And Corrie said, "No way! That’s taking religion just a little bit too far! I’m NOT going to thank God for these infernal fleas!"
After a while, their nightly Bible study started to attract more and more women. And Corrie started worrying that they’d get caught. And she asked one of the women, "Why don’t the Nazis ever come in and check on us?"
The woman said, "It’s because of the fleas. They won’t come near this barracks because of the fleas." And then Corrie remembered this Bible verse and she said, "God, thank you for the fleas!"
Just like those Nazi’s didn’t like fleas,
Satan doesn’t like to be around people praising God.
He’s like a prowling lion,
but he’s looking for weak and wounded people,
who’ll be easy targets.
He’s not going to mess with Christians,
who are showing their faith and trust in God,
by thanking God continually.
So, God wants us to give Him continual praise and thanksgiving,
1) because the world is watching to see if we’re really any different.
and 2) because Satan is watching to see if we’re weak,
The third reason is, 3. GOD IS WATCHING
2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
What God was saying is – I’m looking for people that I can demonstrate my power and strength through.
I’m looking for people whose hearts are fully committed to me and trust me through the good, the bad and the ugly.
People who are willing to thank Me even when they’re face to face with difficult circumstances.
I’m looking all over the earth for those people
and when I find them
I strengthen them
I give them my power,
I make sure they have whatever they need
because those are the kind of people that honor me
and I’m looking all over for people like that.
Are you one of those people?
Acts 16:25 “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.”
In Paul’s situation, thanksgiving brought them freedom, - suddenly their chains came loose as God shook the foundation of the prison.
But you know what? they didn’t immediately get out of prison, -
It wasn’t until the next day that they were actually released from prison.
This is significant, because a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving doesn’t always immediately bring an end to your tough circumstances, but it will always bring God’s blessing into the middle of them.
Paul and Silas didn’t get out of prison that day, but they were immediately loosed from the chains that had bound them.
When you start praising God
in the middle of your lousy circumstances,
Those circumstances may not end God may have some other plans that we don’t yet understand,
But what will happen is,
our chains will come off,
the chains of discouragement, and defeat,
and whining and moaning, and complaining
And they’ll be replaced by an attitude of faith.
And the next thing that will happen, is
the world will see it,
the people around you will notice that you’ve changed,
and they’re going to want to know how.
and Satan will see it, and go looking for an easier target,
because you just look like you have too much faith,
for him to mess with.
and God will see it, and strengthen you,
because you’re now the kind of person He’s been looking all over the earth for.
Now, I wish that I could say that I’ve always done this well.
The truth is, I’ve come a long way,
but I don’t always offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving
when things are going badly.
But I’m working on it.
I’m growing and improving.
Close with this story:
Author Bob Reccord wrote about a time
when he suffered a neck injury:
He wrote:
I suffered a severe cervical spinal injury. The pain was so excruciating, the hospital staff couldn’t even get me into the MRI until they had significantly sedated me. The only way I could relieve the pain was to use a strong, prescribed narcotic and to lie on bags of ice. Sleep, what little there was, came only by sitting in a reclining chair.
Approximately 48 hours from the onset of the injury, doctors estimated that I lost about 80 percent of the strength in my left arm. Three fingers on my left hand totally lost feeling. Even the slightest movements would send pain waves hurtling down my left side and shoulder. I was required to wear a neck brace…24 hours a day for five weeks.
About halfway through that experience, I found myself sitting on the screened-in porch behind our home. The day was cold and blustery, but I was committed to being outside, just for a change of scenery. Suddenly a bird landed on the railing and began to sing. On that cold, rainy day, I couldn’t believe any creature had a reason to sing. I wanted to shoot that bird! But he continued to warble, and I had no choice but to listen.
The next day found me on the porch again, but this time the atmosphere was bright, sunny, and warm. As I sat, being tempted to feel sorry for myself, suddenly the same bird returned. And he was singing again! Where was that shotgun?
Then an amazing truth hit me head on: the bird sang in the cold rain as well as the sunny warmth. His song was not altered by outward circumstances, but it was held constant by an internal condition.
It was as though God quietly said to me, "You’ve got the same choice, Bob. You will either let external circumstances mold your attitude, or your attitude will rise above the external circumstances.
Lets stand for prayer.
