Bless the Lord!

Psalm 134 (WBC)

Come, bless YAHWEH, all you servants of YAHWEH, Who are standing in YAHWEH’s house by night.

Raise your hands toward the holy place and bless YAHWEH

May YAHWEH bless you from Zion, the one who made heaven and earth.

Let us bless the Lord!

Many women are converging on San Antonio today and tomorrow as they journey to worship in the house of the Lord. The Alamodome, a multi-venue coliseum, will become a house of the Lord as His people come to bless His name there.

I studied the Psalm of Ascents from the Stepping Up study by Beth Moore. On the pages of the study of Psalm 134, Beth Moore quotes from the New Interpreter’s Bible:

“After Psalm 133 has celebrated the unity of the gathered people of God in Zion, Psalm 134 addresses the gathered congregation, inviting them to do what they had come to Jerusalem to do: praise the Lord.”

Then she goes on to quote Peterson:

“The sentence [‘Come, bless Yahweh’] is an invitation: it is also a command. Having arrived at the place of worship, will we now sit around and tell stories about the trip? Having gotten to the big city, will spend our time here as tourists, visiting bazaars, window shopping and trading? Having gotten Jerusalem [or San Antonio for the siestas] checked off our list of things to do, will we immediately begin to looking for another challenge, another holy place to visit? Will the temple be a place to socialize, receive congratulations from others on our achievement, a place to share gossip and trade stories, a place to make business contacts that will improve our prospects back home? But that is not why you made the trip: bless God. You are here because God blessed you. Now you bless God.”

Then Beth wrote:

“Briefly summarize Peterson’s basic point in your own words:

I wrote: ‘Do what you came to do!’ Of course, God blesses our fellowship and our shared experiences; each of those have important places in our travels here on earth. You and I, however, were created to praise God, so let’s spend priority time doing what we came to do. I felt a tang of conviction over my attention during worship in my own church. I dearly love the people who sit in my same general section and, goodness knows, God wants me to! He desires us to embrace and be happy to see one another; but when worship begins, God wants us to push the hold button on our fellowship with one another and give HIM 100 percent of our attention. He wants us to do what we came to do! Anybody else a tad convicted?” (Moore, Stepping Up, Lifeway Press, 2007, pp. 163-4)

I chose to quote Beth’s words on this as she articulated it better than I ever could. We’re going to worship the Lord with Travis Cottrell and Beth Moore as the hosts of the event.

I look forward to meeting so many of you! We have plans to meet before the worship or afterwards! I look forward to enjoying the fellowship with you. I look forward to the friendships that will come out of this gathering. I hope and pray we will become life long friends as we all have a heart for the Lord.

But when it is time--let us remember our reason for this journey: to bless the Lord! I’m sure we in turn will be blessed!

Engrafted by His Grace--