SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, it's Nancy with your Wednesday edition of our daily walk.
SPEAKER_00: We've been studying in Nehemiah how God made a way for his children to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild their city, their temple, and the walls around the city, and to restore their lives back to him and to their home place there.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Aaron talked about the risks that were there for the people as they went back to that city.
SPEAKER_00: I also imagine there was some excitement that they were rebuilding their homes and their lives in Jerusalem and once again able to worship freely in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 84 was part of a recent devotional for me, and I read that many scholars believe it was written by the temple musicians called the Sons of Koran when the temple was rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: It was to be a song of joy and praise as they gathered together in God's temple and celebrated his presence with them and remembered his faithfulness, his mercy, his provision, his love.
SPEAKER_00: This week we're celebrating 250 years of freedom in our country, which includes the freedom to gather and worship together.
SPEAKER_00: I think perhaps sometimes we may take that freedom for granted.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I think God longs for us to worship him together in joy and praise, just like his children did when they traveled back to Jerusalem and worshiped him there.
SPEAKER_00: Our worship through music stirs my soul in a deep way as I experience God's presence and as he reminds me of his hand on my life.
SPEAKER_00: And when I play the piano, I look out and see that I believe it does for many of you as well.
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps we can let Psalm 84 be a song of joy and praise for us this day as we celebrate the goodness of God in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Listen as I share that passage from God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: My soul longs, yes, feints for the courts of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
SPEAKER_00: As they go through the valley of Bacchab, they make it a place of springs.
SPEAKER_00: The early rain also covers it with pools.
SPEAKER_00: They go from strength to strength.
SPEAKER_00: Each one appears before God in Zion.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Give ear, O God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Behold our shield, O God.
SPEAKER_00: Look on the face of your anointed.
SPEAKER_00: For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord God is a son and shield.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord bestows favor and honor.
SPEAKER_00: No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trust in you.
SPEAKER_00: O my friends, may the words of our mouth and the music flowing from our hearts be those of joy and praise to our God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.