Follow the Gold Bricked Road!

Selected Passage:
Esther 1:1-3:15; Psalm 103:1-6; Proverbs 21:5-6; Romans 8:1-25

Selected Passage:  Psalm 103
The Psalm and New Testament passage compliment each other again today.
First the Psalm...
The Lord is praised here for his compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. He redeems our lives from the pit. Such a gift is unforgettable and not deserved. It is grace. It is a gift for no other reason, other than for the love of our almighty creator. The gift results in praise to the Giver of All Good Things.
Next Romans 8....
The writer stresses that our present sufferings could never compare to the future glory to be revealed in us. He would almost seem advocating a trade-off here...  pay now, play later. It would almost seem that way. Except, as we have bee reading and learning a lot lately, God is not about sharing His glory with us. The glory to which Paul refers here is not OUR glory at all. It is the glory due to God alone. And how do we glorify God? Well, for starters, we glorify God with our words of praise and adoration (Psalm 103). The sufferings we endure cannot compare to the magnitude of the future glory because it will be GOD'S glory that is revealed in US! Wow! What a privilege to be a conduit of matchless glory to the Creator of the universe!

Suddenly my problems become golden bricks with which I will spend a lifetime of paving a road - a highway - upon which praises to God will travel.