Come into his city with songs of thanksgiving. Come into his courtyards with songs of praise.
Psalm 100:4 (Life Application Study Bible)
Jesus Tells us…when you live your life praising and thanking Me for the blessings I give you each day, your life becomes filled with miracles. It is as if a blindfold has been removed from your eyes. With your eyes wide open, you see more and more of My glorious riches. So let your thankfulness sing out My praises! A thankful heart keeps you focused on Me and what I am doing in your life. Instead of trying to be in control, you relax and make Me the Center for your life. This is the way I created you to live, and it is a way of Joy.
Jesus Concludes…Your joyful praises are the language of heaven, and the true language of your heart.
Psalm 100:4; Colossians 3:15; Acts 9:18; Revelation 19:3-6;
Psalm 100:5
Footnotes Psalm 100:4 God alone is worthy of being worshiped. What is your attitude toward worship? Do you willingly and joyfully come into God’s presence, or are you just going through the motions, reluctantly going to church? Has a recent disagreement left you fuming? This psalm tells us to lay aside the cares of normal life and remember God’s goodness and dependability. This will change our attitudes and enable us to worship with thanksgiving and praise!
Passage Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Footnotes Colossians 3:15 The word translated “rule” comes from the language of athletics, Paul tells us to let Christ’s peace be an umpire or referee in our hearts. Our hearts are the center of conflict, because there, our feelings and desires clash, our fears and hopes, distrust and trust, jealousy and love. How can we deal with these types of conflicts and live as God wants? Paul explains that we must resolve conflicting issues by using the rule of peace. Which choice will promote peace in our souls and in our churches?
Passage Acts 9:18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.
Footnotes Acts 9:7-18 Although Acts makes no mention of a special filling of the Holy Spirit for Saul, his changed life and subsequent accomplishments bear strong witness to the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in him. Evidently, the Holy Spirit filled Saul when he received his sight and was baptized.
Passage Revelation 19:3-6 3And again they shouted: Hallelujah! “The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” 4The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen Hallelujah!” 5Then a voice came from the throne, saying, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both great and small!” 6Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Footnotes Revelation 19:1-10 Praise is the heartfelt response to God of those who love him. The more you get to know God and realize what he has done, the more you will respond with praise. Praise is at the heart of true worship. Let your praise of God flow out of your realization of who he is and how much he loves you.
Passage Psalm 100:5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever, his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Jesus Tells Us is from the Jesus Calling 365 devotions for kids.
THE WORLD…we see history
Reverend Thomas Prince
October 16th 1746
The Prayer that sunk a Navy
In the 1740’s, the American Colonies became a rope in the tur-of-war between Britain and France. One of the harshest periods of conflict, King George’s War, raged from 1744 to 1748, some thirty years before the Declaration of Independence. In the midst of the conflict, in October 1746, Bostonians heard with alarm that the French admiral Duc D’Anville was preparing to sail his fleet from Nova Scotia to Boston Harbor to attack the city and rave New England. It was the largest naval armada to have threatened the American Coastline. The governor of the Massachusetts colony had no adequate way to protect Boston, the jewel of American cities, or its fifteen thousand inhabitants. The French were coming to burn the city to the ground. Sunday, October 16th, 1746, was appointed a citywide day of prayer and fasting. Panicked citizens gathered into the city’s churches, with hundreds of the crowding into the historic Old South Meeting House. The only thing pleasant that day was the weather, which was peaceful and calm. Not a breeze ruffled the waters in the bay, and no threatening clouds drifted through the skies. The pastor of Old South Church was Reverend Thomas Prince, a powerful force in the Great Awakening, a friend of George Whitefield, and a man of prayer. Climbing into the high pulpit, Rev. Prince earnestly interceded on behalf of the Colonies. “Deliver us from our enemy,” he reportedly prayed. “Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the waters to the eastward! Raise Thy right hand. Scatter the ships of our tormentors and drive them thence.” Suddenly a powerful gust of wind struck the church so hard the shutters banged, startling the congregation. Rev. Prince paused and looked up in surprise. Sunlight no longer streamed through the windows, and the room reflected the ominous darkness of the sky. Gathering his thoughts, Rev. Prince continued with greater earnestness, saying, “Sink their proud frigates beneath the power of Thy winds.” Gusts of wind caused the church bell to chime “a wild and uneven sound though no man was in the steeple.” Raising his hand toward heaven, Rev. Prince bellowed, “We hear Thy voice, O Lord! We hear it! Thy Breath is upon the deep. Thy bell toils for the death of our enemies!” overcome by emotion, he paused as tears ran down his cheeks, then he ended his prayer saying, “Thine be the glory, Lord. Amen and Amen!” That day a storm of hurricane force struck the French ships.
The WORD…we see Jesus, His Story!
The greater part of the fleet was wrecked, and the Duc D’Anville either took his own life or died from a stroke. Only a few sailors survived. In his book Anatomy of a Naval Disaster: The 1746 French Expedition to North America, Professor James Pritchard wrote, “Not a single French military objective had been achieved. Thousands of soldiers and sailors were dead. No one knows how many men died during the expedition; some estimates range as high as 8,000. So great was the calamity that naval authorities hastened to wind up its affairs and bury quickly and effectively the memory of its existence.”
Back in Boston, the governor set aside a day of thanksgiving, and according to historian Catherin Drinker Bowen, “There was no end to the joyful quotation: if God be for us, who can be against us?” somehow that verse came to people’s minds, remining them that when God is our advocate, no enemy, not even an entire navy, can overcome us. This verse comes from the majestic song of Paul at the end of Romans 8, in which he exalts in the grace of God, whose love for us is unending. “What then shall we say to these things?” asked Paul. “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” in nearby Braintree, on that never-to-be forgotten day, a child named John Adams knelt with his family as his father thanked God “for this most timely evidence of His favor.” A century later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, immortalized the event in his poem “A Ballad of the French Fleet,” written in the voice of Rev. Prince, who said, in part:
There were rumors in the street, In the houses there was fear of the coming of the fleet, And the danger hovering near and while from mouth to mouth spread the tidings of dismay, I stood in the Old south, saying Humbly, “Let us pray?”
Source, 100 Bible Verses that made America https://www.robertjmorgan.com/shop/100-bible-verses-that-made-america/