Sunday, because it is Thanksgiving week, we quit the story of Abraham right smack dab in the middle and looked at the one-hundredth Psalm.  Which presents itself as a song of Praise and Thanksgiving.  

I was thinking, “How am I going to fill forty-five minutes with five verses.  (It is a very short Psalm.)  However, in reading it, I found that only one verse, the last one, is about praise.  The body of it is instructional.  And since I am an application teacher, it gave me something to teach.

Here’s how it goes:

1. Make a joyful noise (everybody)  2. Serve the Lord with Gladness.        3. Come before his presence with singing. 4. Know that the Lord, he is God.   5.  Acknowledge that he has made us, we haven’t made ourselves.  6. He is our Shepherd, we are his sheep--stop trying to lead, let him lead. 7. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.  8. Be thankful to him. 9. Bless His name.

I guess if we got all of those things done that we are instructed to do, we could say that we were on the right path.  Basically they are joyful things.  So we need to concentrate on who God is, not on what we want him to do. ACTS: Adore, Confess, Thank, then....Supplicate (ask). 

The last verse is praise.  “For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.”  Just think how many generations that the truth of the written word has endured.  Bibles are everywhere in the world.  The problem is getting people to actually read them.  Read!!