Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Week in Review

Psalm 133 - A Psalm of Harmony
Show Yourself Friendly Retreat (Part 5)



Living in harmony is life…Dew…Harmony is as refreshing as the dew

* Is Abundant - Dew is numerous in droplets. Therefore our efforts to live in harmony should be numerous. We should be willing to forgive when others hurt us. Not just seven times, but more like seventy time seventy. Our words, deeds and teaching should be plentiful and encourage others so they are like dew upon a tender plant it helps it to grow.


“Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” - Deuteronomy 32:2

* Is Refreshing – Standing in a mist is cooling on a hot day. It should be the same with us. We should be able to come into situations and not “heat” them up, but be like the cool mist that cools the scorching heat of men’s passions, and calm down situations and bring a refreshing to a situation. Like the dew that refreshes, our harmony with God refreshes us, allowing us to be refreshment for others.

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” – Acts 3:19

* Is Fruitful –The falling of dew contributes to the growth of fruit. It moistens the heart and makes it tender and fit to receive the good seed of the word. Harmony is like dew, which brings forth fruit. It brings new life to the community or the family of God. We become that dew that waters those we have been given to oversee, God gives us charges that we must help grow.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. – Psalm 1:3



…as the dew from the Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion…


Dew of Hermon - a common hill – This is brotherly love in our civil, everyday lives. This is our relationships with friends, co-workers, how we treat people we meet, the lady we sit next to every day at work or the person across from us in class. If we are willing to show ourselves friendly in our common areas we become like dew that pours off the Mount Hermon (our common places) and it falls on the mountains of Zion. What does that mean?


Dew of mountains of Zion - A holy hill – In scripture we see often how the writers say this is the place where God dwells. So this means when we show ourselves friendly first in our common areas that dew that was poured out there can contribute greatly to the fruitfulness of sacred relationships. We are called to show ourselves friendly so that we can be dew upon our unsaved so that that may shift them to being our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are then being called to love both those in our churches but also those that are not part of the family. God requires this because then we become what he wants us to be, those that reconcile the unsaved back to him, just as he did for us. It is important to also understand that both Hermon and Zion will wither without dew. If we do not live in harmony both the relationship in our common places and our sacred places will die.



Harmony brings blessings.…And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting

* Loving People are Blessed People – “For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.” Deuteronomy 30:16


The proof of the Excellency of brotherly love is that loving people are blessed people. There are blessed of God. Those that live in love and peace shall have the God of love and peace with them now, and they shall be with him forever. One important thing to understand is that we can receive the blessings and provisions of God only when we are in harmony with him. If we do not love our brothers that we see, how can we say we love God whom we do not see?


The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. deut 28:8 (KJV)


Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. psalm 42:8 (KJV)


The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah. For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever - Ps 21:1-4



----FINAL NOTES----


What have we learned from this psalm 133? It is truly wonderful and pleasant when we can live in harmony. God mandates that you and I seek him first so we can live as his friend and no longer as his enemy. He then requires us to seek to love one another. Not a surface relationship but one that is in agreement in our actions and in our seeking the best for each other.

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