"Most Wanted" - Day 29 - "Majesty"

Here are my reflections on Day 29 of Dr. Terry Teykl’s “My Most Wanted Devotional: 40 Days to Pray for the Lost.” Comments are welcome and encouraged.

All

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. (Psalm 8:1 – NIV)

“All” is an inclusive word. If I eat it all, then none is left. If the event is open to all then no one is excluded. If something is a “free-for-all” then anyone might come out the winner.

When David sings in Psalm 8, “… How majestic is your name in all the earth! …” he means that God’s name is majestic to all things. He acknowledges that God is the grand Creator of all things, the Author of knowledge, the Giver of life.

Praying for his disciples in John 17:10 Jesus prays to God, “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine…” Previously in John 10:30, he says to the Jewish leaders, “I and the Father are one.” This indicates to me that Jesus’ “all” here is appropriately inclusive. Jesus and God are all-in-one and one-in-all.

Yet, David goes on in an allusion to Jesus in Psalm 8, “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings…” Imagine that… the All-in-all made lower than angels. The allusion is to the incarnation of God who became fully human in Jesus.

And why did God to choose to do such a humiliating thing? Because God loved the lost, and wanted that none should perish.

Dr Teykl quotes St. Fransis of Assisi’s great hymn “All Creatures of our God and King” where the hymnist sings, “Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness.” (Teykl, 2008, p. 71)

How do we as part of the “all” of creation, and as members of the body of Christ, bless the Lord and worship Him in humbleness? I think one compelling answer to this is that we might participate in the story that all creation sings by loving the lost, and wanting none to perish.

Prayer

Mighty God, you are our all-in-all, our God the three-in-one. We worship you for you created us, redeemed us, and sustain us. Grant that we might participate in you grand plan by directing others to you that they might be redeemed and sustained as is you will and desire for them. Amen.