Ambrose Brothers

Praise the Lord!

As you probably noticed, there was no new blog to read yesterday, and for that let me say I’m sorry. Although it’s no excuse my brother and I have both been having a busy week. As Travis said Wednesday, he’s been in the midst of running one of the summer’s greatest VBS’s. As for me, I’ve been dealing with some issues running through my extended family. Not that any details are needed, but I have been a little down this week. Yet as I sat down to write this morning and opened my Bible up to Ecclesiastes, I just happened to glance behind me and notice a verse I have hanging on my wall.  It always brightens my day, and wanted to share it with you.

Psalms 57:9-11 –

[9] I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
[10] For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
[11] Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

As we read the words of this Psalm, I’m sure we can envision someone with a lot to be thankful for; someone who has been delivered from a great battle, someone who has come out of a great struggle. However before we go on take a minute to turn your bibles to Psalms Chapter 57 and read the whole Psalm.

Now we see the complete picture, David is in distress here He says his soul is among lions, his enemies have prepared a net for his steps, they have prepared a pit to trap him, not exactly the call to praise that we may have envisioned earlier. We see here a man who is in a valley, not on a mountain top, someone whose lives cant get much worse rather then someone who has it all.

How often do we give Praise to God in our lives? Often we forget to praise him even when things are going well. Our Prayer times can turn into nothing more then a wish list as we tell God all the things we want. Or maybe when things get grim our prayers stop being heard at all as we grow upset that God would give us these circumstances.

I would just challenge you to take time to Praise God today and everyday. Praise him when your up, and praise him when your down. Praise him thru prayers, and praise him thru song. Praise him because the gift he has already given us, or is willing to give us is so much greater then any trial or tribulation we will face here on earth.

Praise the Lord!

A Thought for Fathers

First let me apologize at the lateness of this post. My intentions had been to have it posted Sunday night, but a number of things got in the way of that happening, and I experienced a full day today as well.

Yesterday as we probably all know was Father’s day, and the day was truly an amazing day. From the breakfast of toast and yogurt my 5 year old son made me, to a time of family worship at church, and an afternoon of ribs, and video games, the day was a blessing from start to finish. And I had thought of writing this post on the blessings of family’s I was even going to throw out Proverbs 18:22 and speak to that topic as well (I’ll still let you look up that one). But as I sat at home Sunday night a single thought disturbed me. There were a lot of people not in church on Sunday. I’m not speaking of personally to my church, but in churches around the country, men chose to sleep in on fathers day instead of taking there family’s to worship the Lord. On Sunday night men around the country found it more important to catch a ball game, or barbecue in the back yard then to sit under the teachings of our God.

As I thought of this, a passage my Pastor used Sunday morning came to mind. Its found in Psalms 1:1-3:

1 Blessed is the man
         Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
         Nor stands in the path of sinners,
         Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
         And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree
         Planted by the rivers of water,
         That brings forth its fruit in its season,
         Whose leaf also shall not wither;
         And whatever he does shall prosper.

Blessed is the man who delight’s in the law of the Lord, blessed is the man who meditates upon it day and night. And I read this and think to myself, dads what are we doing. Maybe you do think on the law daily, but are we passing that along to our children. What do are children see when they look at us? And for those of us who may not have children or have children in the homes, what do our grandchildren think, what do are nieces and nephews think, what is the message we are sending to our neighbors when they drive by our house Sunday morning and see our car parked there.

Attending church will not get you to heaven, so don’t think I’m saying that. But we are called to fellowship, study, and worship with other believers. Not to mention our children are watching. They are watching what are priorities are, and those priorities will be passed on to them. We live in a day and age where at least 80 percent of teens are leaving the church, there falling to agnosticism, or false religions. Why? I believe in part because they haven’t seen a passion for the Lord in the home. That’s not the only reason, and there are cases where we do everything right and they will still fall, but we must look at what we can do. And what were doing now isn’t working.

Growing up, my parents did a number of things wrong, I do things wrong, and all parents probably do, but one thing my parents did right was have me in church. I would go so far as to say I was in church every time the doors were open. It didn’t matter what was going on at the church we were there. When we went on vacation we were in church, when we visited family we were in church. And when we were home we didn’t miss. Sure there were the rare occasions where something came up, and we just had to miss something, but it was made known this was unacceptable and it didn’t happen often. I saw even at a younger age, that being in church that fellowship with other Christians, and hearing the word taught were important.

Dads, I ask again what are we doing when we teach our kids that it’s ok to stay home Sunday nights because of a ball game on TV. Or when we teach our kids Sunday school isn’t as important as sleeping in. Around the country fathers taught there kids that church was not something they enjoyed as they got to pick what they did and it wasn’t church. Father’s let’s take our responsibility for our children’s spiritual walk seriously. Let’s show them that we delight in the law, let’s show them that we meditate upon it day and by night.

And on a personal note, thanks Dad for having me in church all those years. Even when I did not want to be.

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."