Psalm 118:21-25 The Message
21-25 Thank you for responding to me;
you’ve truly become my salvation!
The stone the masons discarded as flawed
is now the capstone!
This is God’s work.
We rub our eyes—we can hardly believe it!
This is the very day God acted—
let’s celebrate and be festive!
Salvation now, God. Salvation now!
Oh yes, God—a free and full life!
Word of God for the Children of God
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
The beauty of fall colors is both breathtaking and brief.
We look outside and see the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of fall leaves, and we feel inspired when we’re enjoying the sight of them.
But we also know the truth: those same leaves will soon dry up and fall to the ground. Their beauty doesn’t last forever. The colorful fall foliage season is fleeting, and if we don’t pay attention, we might miss the chance to enjoy it.
The opportunities God gives us to enjoy each day are also temporary.
Time keeps moving, and each day comes and goes only once. If we aren’t making the most of our time, we may let those opportunities slip by.
Every single day is a gift from God.
God makes each day with good purposes, and he places us in it to rejoice and be glad by fully embracing the opportunities it brings us.
But how often do we forget this?
We constantly rush through our schedules, get caught up in stress, or focus on disappointments, thoughts drift toward what went wrong yesterday or what might go wrong tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the gift of today quietly slips through our fingers.
It’s like standing under a tree during the season of peak fall colors and never once looking up to enjoy the wonder that’s around us.
The Bible tells us to rejoice in this day.
Not yesterday, which is already gone.
Not tomorrow, which hasn’t come yet.
God wants us to enjoy this day we’re living right now.
Our days won’t all be easy.
Many days in our fallen world bring challenging circumstances into our lives.
We may not feel glad.
But God’s call to rejoice and be glad doesn’t depend on our circumstances. It depends on our relationships with him. God made this day, and he is with us in it. God’s presence with us throughout each day is enough reason to be glad.
The beauty of fall leaves is precious because it doesn’t last forever.
In the same way, today is precious because it won’t come again.
We can’t repeat it, and we can’t hold onto it once it passes.
This truth can inspire us to pay closer attention to all the opportunities God gives us to feel glad.
We can start to notice and celebrate by sharing a meal with our friends and families, laughing with our children, watching a sunset, or just, sit, enjoying listening to music. Everything we enjoy is a reason to thank God and celebrate!
We can feel glad even when we feel pain at the same time.
When we’re going threw challenging situations, remembering that our good God is still with us helps us notice the good that God brings into each day.
We can choose not to waste today’s blessings just because they’re mixed in with painful circumstances.
The more we look for God’s goodness, the more we can find it and appreciate it.
Every day we wake up is another opportunity from God to enjoy our lives.
When we practice rejoicing today, we can build lives full of gladness every day.
We can become people who live fully each day God gives us.
Psalm 118 was the final prayer song in the liturgy of the Passover feast, which celebrated Israel’s freedom from slavery.
Israel was the stone that the builders of civilization had rejected, but God made his people the cornerstone of his plan for the world.
The apostles referred to Jesus also as the stone that was rejected, and he is now the all-important cornerstone of God’s kingdom.
Jesus is the Messiah who rode into Jerusalem as Israel’s king.
Though rejected by the Jews, he became the foundation stone for a new temple.
And he will come again as the heavenly sovereign Judge.
He ultimately is the one who says, “I will not die but live.”
Jesus the Messiah rises from the depths to the heights, and in the process he takes us along with him.
The rejected stone becomes the new cornerstone, and we become living stones essential to God’s new building (1 Peter 2:5).
The word for “cornerstone” can also be interpreted as “capstone,” indicating that Jesus becomes the crowning glory of the building that is the temple or the kingdom of God, and we will share in his glory (Romans 8:17).
No longer rejected but precious; no longer worthless but important—that’s our new identity in Christ.
Let’s pay attention to the wonder of God’s work in our lives every day so we don’t miss everything God wants us to enjoy today. When we do so, we’ll find plenty of blessings from our God to celebrate before the very next day comes!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …
Praying …..
29 1-2 Bravo, God, bravo!
Gods and all angels shout, “Encore!”
In awe before the glory,
in awe before God’s visible power.
Stand at attention!
Dress your best to honor him!
3 God thunders across the waters,
Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness—
God, across the flood waters.
4 God’s thunder tympanic,
God’s thunder symphonic.
5 God’s thunder smashes cedars,
God topples the northern cedars.
6 The mountain ranges skip like spring colts,
The high ridges jump like wild kid goats.
7-8 God’s thunder spits fire.
God thunders, the wilderness quakes;
He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.
9 God’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing
A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.
We fall to our knees—we call out, “Glory!”
10 Above the floodwaters is God’s throne
from which his power flows,
from which he rules the world.
11 God makes his people strong.
God gives his people peace.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 