ATTITUDES TO LIVE BY

 

ATTITUDES TO LIVE BY

Psalm 100:1 Shout with joy to the Lord, O earth! Worship the Lord with gladness.

We are to shout for joy unto the Lord. There are basically three reasons why a person shouts. He shouts to be heard. Silence is not golden when we have something to say that is not being heard. We gain nothing but frustration and internalized anger when no one cares to listen to us. We shout so someone will actually stop and listen to us.

We shout because we are hurting. When pain is great and doesn’t go away, shouting is a means of relieving the agony we are in. It may be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual agony. When someone is shouting, we need to try to understand why they are shouting.

We shout sometimes when we are very happy. Joy floods our sould, and we want others to know how happy we really are.

We are to shout for joy. When was the last time that you were so overpowered by the Lord that you just had to shout? I believe there is an absence of joy in the hearts of most believers today. Why is that? A couple of reasons come to mind.

We lack joy because we settle for the appetizers of God’s grace instead of feasting on the riches of His grace. The best of God’s blessings for us are not out of reach. They are wrapped in God’s holiness. Without living in holiness, we wallow around in the appetizers of grace. We fail to move beyond the elementary things of faith. We lose more battles with sin than we win.

We lack joy because we have an unhealthy tolerance for sin in our lives which squeezes the joy right out of us. Sin suffocates the soul so we can’t breathe. We compromise the integrity of our hearts when we tolerate sin. God makes it clear to us what sin is and when we try to redefine it, we lose out on the joys of salvation.

We are to shout for joy to the Lord. If Jesus is your Lord, you have shouting new! eyes.