How Beautiful Is The One Who Made Us!

NOTE: I’ll be traveling this week and the meditations for Nov 2-6 were first published one year ago.

November 4, 2015

How Beautiful Is The One Who Made Us!

Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!

Psalm 148:13

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd was shouting, “Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!” But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!” He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!” (Luke 19:38-40). What do you suppose the stones would have said?

Saint Francis suggested this: “How beautiful is the one who made us!” I think both Jesus and Saint Francis may have taken their inspiration for the notion of creation praising their Creator from Psalm 148. Among the psalmist’ exhaustive list of those who praise God are all God’s angels, all the armies of heaven, the sun and moon, all you twinkling stars, the skies above, the vapors high above the clouds, the creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, as well as kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Wow!

Included within the psalmist’ call for all creation to praise God is the virtue of unity within God’s creation. This reminds me of the Apostle Paul’s assertion that “creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:21-22). Someday the lion and the lamb, all creation, even the “small scurrying animals” will sing praise to God in perfect unity and perfect harmony.

As I hear the call of the psalmist for all creation to praise our Creator, I find Saint Francis’ suggestion quite compelling. My tendency has been to praise God for ____ (fill in the blank). The blank could be for specific things I feel are blessings in my life, or it could be the beauty of God’s creation. Saint Francis is asking me to consider simply praising my Maker, not for the wonders He has performed, but because He is:  “How beautiful is the one who made us!”

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.