Nougat 25

So siblings,

How do we react when someone has done something really great for us? Is our response different when the someone is God? If we are always grateful, that’s marvellous. Otherwise, let’s pull up our socks. We don’t need to hide our gratitude, God deserves our highest praise. Consider Today’s Holy Nougat.

Exodus 15:1-2 AFV

[1] Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and spoke, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea.

[2] The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will glorify Him, my father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

What Will We Sing?

Because they had seen and believed God’s saving grace, those Children of Israel were absolutely ready to party! With the pharaoh and his men vanquished, the sea visibly closing behind them, and Prophet-Priest DJ Moses leading the way, they were truly jubilant. Before the enemy of their souls fully grasped the extent of defeat, the people were praising God with their everything. What a glorious sound that must have been! That’s a blueprint for us to follow: praising in the moment before it passes.

Self-Check

What does our praise to God sound like? Would others be able to say they know the sound?

Deeper Dive

The elders in my country used to say, ‘howdy, tenky, no bruk no square’, meaning, it pays to be polite. When the reason for our praise is none other than Almighty God, our Deliverer, it is even more important to testify to God’s goodness.

The psalmist tells us it is a good thing to give thanks unto God, and to sing praises unto God’s name. It is worth noting that the praise mentioned here in Psalm 92:1, yadah, refers to both thanksgiving and confession in some Bible translations, although it is more accurately rooted in hand gestures. What this suggests to me is that we ought to make time to confess God’s goodness to ourselves and to others as regularly as we can with our words and actions.

This is corroborated by what follows, as the psalmist says that they would ‘confess’ of God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness. Isn’t that something?! One writer raises an example of this confessional praise singing, New every morning is Your love, our waking and uprising prove, through sleep and darkness safely brought, restored to life and power and thought John Keble, owned this in 1827, using Lamentations 3:22-23 as the base text, which underscores the power of praise even in distress.

In our Nougat we note that having experienced the mystical rescue from the Egyptians, it is appropriate that the testimony offered by Moses and the entire congregation was celebratory. More noteworthy is the fact that navah speaks to an abiding action of beatification. In short, the people sought to adorn YHWH with testimonies of what YHWH had done for them.

Hear some of the descriptors used in their testimony to each other … YHWH is strength, song, salvation, (supreme) God, adorned with praises, and placed on high. I’m sure we all can relate to those terms!

What is even more encouraging siblings is that this response wasn’t rehearsed. It was perhaps led by Miriam, expanded by Moses, and sung by all. This says we are welcome to offer spontaneous praises to God also and testify to God’s goodness to others. Might we, like the Children of Israel, adorn God with our testimonies today?

Praise Challenge

Let’s create our own songs of praise to adorn God today.

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May all we seek be found in Christ