To Encourage You

Psalm 34:3 ““Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

Do you like invitations?  They are typically very nice things to receive.  Someone is celebrating something and because of their relationship with you, they want you to join them.  It’s something that someone doesn’t want to be alone to experience. They want to share. 

Spiritually speaking, we receive invitations as well.  Some are good and some are not.  An example of a bad invitation is found in Proverbs 1:10-14.  There it warns us with these words: “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.  If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason;  like Sheol let is swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse.’”  This is clearly an invitation to share in someone else’s sin.   And why do people invite others to sin with them?  Well, it’s NOT because they care about them, for it’s the opposite of love, which “does not rejoice at wrongdoing (1 Corinthians 13:6).”  At its base level, this type of an invitation is an invitation from the devil, and any such invitation is never designed to benefit us, but to steal from us, kill us, or otherwise destroy us, for that’s what the devil does. 

How wonderful, then, to know that God has invitations too, but these are all designed to benefit us because He loves us more than anyone else.  One such invitation is found in the words of Psalm 34:3 above. Here, the Holy Spirit, through the psalmist, invites us to join in the magnification and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ.  What an awesome thing to receive an invitation from God Himself.  Not only does He point to the Son with the words “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17),” but He invites us to point to Him and exalt in His glory as well.  Christ alone is worthy of worship, and He alone is worthy to be exalted in this way. 

And what happens when we do this, when we join Him in this exaltation?  Jesus told us the answer with these words: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (John 12:32).”  With this statement, Jesus was referring to His death, but it is in this act that the glory and wonder of His deity and love are most magnificently displayed.  It is by this “lifting up” that we were saved, and the loving response to that salvation is to exalt Him, i.e., to “lift Him up” with our words.  That’s the message of the gospel that gives life. It’s the message we are to shout from the roof tops to anyone who will listen. And it is by the hearing of this good news that others are drawn to Christ through faith and are saved. 

The invitation to magnify and exalt the risen Christ: have you accepted this wonderful invitation from God Himself?  And if you have, are you telling others that that invitation is to them as well, for the truth is that “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us (1 Corinthians 5:20).” It’s likened to an invitation to a great banquet in Luke 14.  Here the Master (God) implores his servants (all believers) to “‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.”  Sadly, in this story He tells us that many will think they have better things to do, and won’t accept the invitation.  But then the Master, in essence, says, “Go to others then, for there is much room at my banqueting table.  Bring them in!”  What a privilege to join our loving Savior in sharing His invitation far and wide to a world that so desperately needs to hear such wonderful good news.