Come Into God's Presence With A Joyful Song

Psalms 100:1-5
1 Shout happily to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Serve the LORD cheerfully. Come into his presence with a joyful song. 3 Realize that the LORD alone is God. He made us, and we are his. We are his people and the sheep in his care. 4 Enter his gates with a song of thanksgiving. Come into his courtyards with a song of praise. Give thanks to him; praise his name. 5 The LORD is good. His mercy endures forever. His faithfulness endures throughout every generation. GOD'S WORD

It is far too easy to be distracted when you come into the Lord's presence. Mostly when we think of that it involves going to the gathering of saints on Sunday but that isn't the only time that we get distracted coming into His presence.

Coming into the time of worship it is far too easy to be thinking about a lot of other stuff. If you are running late, you are still in that panic mode and concentrating on whether or not anyone is going to notice if you happen to be late. If you are serving in one way or another that worship time then your mind can be running a million different directions. Does everyone know what they are doing? Do I know what I am doing? It is also tempting to be thinking about what is going to be happening after the assembly is over. My mind, like many, goes in every direction but the one that it is supposed to go in.

Those assembly times are, by far, not the only times we come into God's presence. It is true that anytime our bodies are breathing, we are in His presence. The problem is that we just don't notice it often. That second verse says "Serve the LORD cheerfully. Come into his presence with a joyful song." It is important to remember that any time that we are serving another person, we are serving God. There are more than enough times that we will do things for someone when we don't feel like it, when we don't feel like singing. Those are exactly the times that we are supposed to be singing, though.

If you can't get your mind focused in those moments that you should be realizing that you are coming into God's presence, sing. There is no better way to get your mind right than to just sing. Sing out loud if you can (awesome opportunity to witness) or just hum or sing it in your head.

If you need to be reminded why, look at verse 3 and 5 there and you will have plenty of reason.

• Realize that the LORD alone is God.
• He made us, and we are his.
• We are his people and the sheep in his care.
• The LORD is good. His mercy endures forever.
• His faithfulness endures throughout every generation.

Each one of those can easily be turned into a song. If you don't know one, make one up.

It is an awesome thing to be given an opportunity to come into the presence of the King. Sing a song about it and it will get you mind where it needs to be.

raymond, child of the King.