Thought for The Lord’s Day

Is your worship a response to a good God or a good life?

God is a God who is to be praised and worshipped for who He is. You must not connect the reasons for worship to your evaluation of the circumstances in your life. Regardless of the circumstances you face or will  face God is to be worshipped for the splendor of his holiness. Habakkuk has much to tell us about worship rooted in faith instead of circumstance.   

Judah was to be punished because of her rebellion to the Lord. Habakkuk questions why it is right for Judah to be punished by Babylon, a nation that is even more wicked than she had been. God tells Habakkuk that he will also punish Babylon, while the righteous will live by faith. Habakkuk responds in prayer, praise and trust.

I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:16-19

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