Eternal Employment

Ps. 65:1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
2 O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
3 When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!

Over and over again, in the Psalms, we are encouraged to praise the Lord. He is worthy of our praise in light of all of His wondrous deeds to His people. The Psalmist also tells us often that God is not interested in our sacrifice nearly as much as He is interested in our praise. Sacrifice seems "better" but that is not what God thinks. Maybe that is because if we sacrifice we can point to ourselves and when we are praising God we can only point to Him.

How gracious it is of God to atone for our transgressions, since we could not begin to atone for them ourselves, and since He also knows that our iniquities are going to prevail against us. We desire to be holy and righteous, but our sin nature is strong and our flesh is stubborn; it is hard to kill that old man. But Christ has paid the price for our sins and has given us a new man. We must not grieve the Holy Spirit so our sin nature can be overthrown.

Think about God bringing any man near to Himself. How is it that this is good for God? His delight is in our praise, even though we can only praise Him when He gives us that desire. We have nothing good to bring to Him, nothing that He didn't initially give, yet He desires to bring us near to Him. Should we not be practicing our eternal employment while we are still here on earth?

He delights in bringing us near, to dwell in His courts. How great a day that will be. Think about the goodness of His house, compared to what we consider to be good here. His idea of good is infinitely higher that ours. We will delight for all of eternity in His goodness. We have the opportunity and privilege to practice praising Him here on earth; we must take full advantage of it. The Lord loves a cheerful, thankful people.