“What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:12-13.
To comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn of Zion, giving them beauty (bridegroom’s headdress, ornaments of beauty) instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. Isaiah 61:2-3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Stop all the nonsense, stop the debate, and settle on My Word before it is too late.
The Word alone is your home. Stop trying to decipher how you “feel” and look at who you are and what you have in Christ. That is the proper perspective on your life. And you will find, like David, that your inheritance is beautiful and I have brought you into a wide and open space of shalom.
Start appreciating the hope of your calling. Do less evaluating and more appreciating. Do less idle chatter and more praying. Go to the heart of the matter.
It is time to honor the beauty of your life and stop tearing yourself apart in regret and strife. There are many members but one body. And there is only one Head of the body and this is Christ. Not you. Worthy is the Lamb. There is only one Lamb and I Myself provided the Lamb for the burnt offering and it is not you. I taught that to Abraham about Isaac a long time ago.
What can you do for the good I have done for you? Look at the answer in Psalm 116. “What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:12-13. And what are the benefits of which he speaks? Same as yours. “I love the LORD, because He hears my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me. Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live. The cords of death encompassed me and the terrors of hell came upon me; I found distress and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I beseech You, save my life!” Gracious is the LORD, and righteous. Yes, our God is compassionate. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living.” Psalm 116:1-9.
“The cup of Salvation I will take up and call upon the Name of the LORD.” How do you do that?
How do you lift up a cup? In a toast of honor to a person of greatness or in celebration of a great event and then drink to that person’s honor or in honor and thanksgiving celebrating the event. You honor and partake. I have made you who believe in the death and resurrection of My Son partakers of My divinity in Him. The one who eats His flesh and drinks His Blood has eternal life. Lift up and exalt Jesus and partake of His divinity. Come all who are thirsty and drink! He will give you the Spirit and pour out the love that is better than the finest wine into your heart. And when He is lifted up, He draws all men to Himself! Lift Him high in your life and draw the whole world to Yeshuah! Salvation! Lift up the cup, the vessel of Salvation, Jesus! And fill your cup, the vessel of your life, with Him until your cup overflows! For I anoint your head with oil and your cup overflows. Have you never read Psalm 23?
And you are a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifice unto Me as you are built as living stones into a temple of My Spirit, lifting up the cup of Salvation to all who will partake. Seeking, watching, honoring, praying, praising, blessing not cursing, thanking not blaming, taming not shaming.
“Call on the Name of the LORD.” I am honored when you call on Me to be your helper. Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and mighty things you could not know. When you call to Me, I answer you; I will be with you in trouble; I will rescue you and honor you. With long life I will satisfy you and show you My Salvation, Yeshuah. Psalm 91:15-16.
When I would appear and give promises to Abraham, he would build an altar there. Genesis 12:7. And then as he traveled on through the land I promised his descendants he would build an altar there to Me and call upon My Name. Genesis 12:8. And when I appeared to his son, Isaac, he did the same: “So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.” Genesis 26:25. And what did I tell Isaac? The same I told Abraham and the same I tell you, “Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you.” Genesis 26:24.
There are many verses written about calling on My Name. Do you do it? But you will see a pattern of how to do the calling. David sang, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples.” 1 Chronicles 16:8. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” Psalm 50:14-15. “To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:17. “And in that day you will say, ‘Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted.” Isaiah 12:4. “For “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Roman 10:13. Do you see that you call with the voice of thanksgiving? This is calling on Me in truth.
Days of eternity are days of eternal value. Why spend your money (money = time) on what is not bread? Then no one is fed and life is one of hunger. You eat but are never full, your wages go in a bag of holes, all you amass is blown away—wood, hay, stubble—burned up and gone. It is time to step up and sing a new song. Like David, “I waited, waited for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God! Many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.” Psalm 40:1-3. He called on Me and sang a new song and went out of the depths to the heights. Go to the heights with Me, right in your room in your days and your nights. Look what My beloved John saw and shared with you when he was exiled and was alone in a cave on the island of Patmos. He was not crushed, angry, and idle in his exile, but fruitful in awe and wonder. And you can be too, even in exile. Do not hang up your harps and weep. Get productive by renewing your mind to a higher calling.
Prayer is a vocation, a calling, to redeem the nations for Christ and pull souls from the fire. Prayer should be part of the work of your life.
Take a vow to stop looking only at yourself. Abraham did not just look at his body, as good as dead at one hundred years of age, or at the deadness of Sarah’s womb, but at Me and My ability to do whatever I spoke into being. Like My servant Paul, he did not just look at the temporal, for that faded, but at the spiritual that never fades or grows dim or dies.
Stop the nonsense (the whining, complaining, and moaning) and take possession of your possessions in Christ. Stop the nonsense (the fear, depression and anxiety) and take possession of the One who possesses you. I have called you by name, you are Mine. Call Me by Name, I am yours. I gave you My Son to live your life through Him, will I not give you everything, including Myself, with Him? You are rich. Rejoice and take hold of the hope to which I have called you.
It is a whole new day. Be new too. It is time to stop evaluating and start appreciating all you are and all you have in Christ.
You may think you are too weak, tired, and faint, to keep on, you may feel that your life is at a low ebb and all is going down to the pit from which you cannot rise, but in My Word, I give you the remedy. When you have anything you need to know or need help with, first consult Me and I will show you the answer in My Word.
I am now going to take you to the book of My prophet Isaiah. The very scroll Jesus opened in that synagogue in Nazareth when He gave His mission statement to begin His public ministry as Teacher, Healer, and Preacher. His mission for His life from birth to now of course is Savior and Redeemer. The Lamb of sacrifice and your great good Shepherd and great High Priest.
If you read on from the passage My Son read, you will find your answer to weakness and the diming of the light in your lamp. My Son was anointed to preach good news, release captives, heal the broken hearted, and announce a time of jubilee, but the passage continues, “To comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them beauty (the bridegroom’s headdress, ornaments of beauty) instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” Isaiah 61:2-3.
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. There is your answer. You may be thinking how can you praise when you have a spirit of fainting? Let Me show you. A mantle wraps around you, it engulfs and covers. It comes over you. Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha when he called him to the ministry of prophet as his successor. And then when Elijah went up to glory, he told Elisha if he saw him go up, he would receive his prayer for a double portion of the Spirit that was anointing him for his prophetic and miraculous ministry. Elisha saw Elijah go into glory and the mantle of Elijah fell on Elisha and he did double the mighty deeds of Elijah. Greater works. The anointing in the mantle.
As Jesus went up to glory the disciples stood and watched Him go and then the Holy Spirit fell on Pentecost Sunday on all the believers gathered. And what happened? Everyone came to see what was taking place and they heard the believers speaking in tongues “of the magnificence of God.” Acts 2:11. The word there in the original Greek is “megaleios,” which is from “megas” meaning magnificent, splendid, grand. They were mega praises! The mantle of praise had fallen making them strong in spirit, anointed with power to do the works of Christ and greater! All things in Him who strengthened them! And then you read later that the Spirit fell on the gentiles in Cornelius’ home as Peter preached the riches of Christ and the forgiveness of sins in Him—the good news, testifying to Jesus—and they all began speaking in tongues and “exalting (“magaluno” again from “megas”) God.” Acts 10:44-46.
Anointed with the oil of joy and the mantle of praise, calling on My Name in thanksgiving of the magnificence of My works in them and for them. And they did the greater works. Why? Read on in the same chapter of Isaiah that tells you of the mantle of praise, “Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land, everlasting joy will be theirs.” Isaiah 61:7. The double portion comes with the mantle of praise. For the Holy Spirit witnesses with your spirit that you are My child and My heir, a joint heir with Christ. And He is the firstborn so He has the double portion, hence so do you who are in Him. Greater works.
“The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.” The word for “praise” is “tehillah,” again title of the book of Psalms is that word in the plural, “tehillim.” The first time this word is used in the Bible, and first mention tells you many things, is in the song of Moses when the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground between walls of water that had then come down on the pursuing army of Pharaoh as I redeemed them from slavery to freedom. The song of the redeemed. “Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” Exodus 15:11. And later Moses would tell the Israelites, “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name. He is your praise and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things for you which your eyes have seen.” Deuteronomy 10:20-21. I use the same word again, when I tell you that I am enthroned on the praises of My people. Psalm 22:3. The best way to bring Me down is to lift Me up. For you enter My courts with praise. Psalm 100:1.
“A mantle of praise instead of the spirit of fainting.” Look again at that verse. It is a spirit of fainting. It is more than a physical weakness. It is a spirit, an unclean spirit. Do not give in to that spirit and go down. The word there for “fainting” is “keheh” which means to dim, faint, fade away—I use it in other places as a smoldering wick, a lamp going out, a life ebbing away, debilitating weakness, a brilliance dimmed until it sputters out. You can give in or you can fight the good fight of faith by putting on the mantle of praise. Even better, let it fall on you as you lift up the cup of salvation and call on My Name. And how do you call? The answer is in the same Psalm in which I tell you what can you do in response for the good I have done for you: “What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:12-13. Just go down four lines in that same Psalm 116 and you find the answer, “To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:17. And what is the sacrifice of thanksgiving? Leviticus 7:11-181. Under the New Covenant, it is a spiritual sacrifice as My royal priesthood, so it is nothing other than the voice of thanksgiving that brings wonders. And if you don’t remember the teaching I gave you on that, go back and read it. But to sum up very briefly, the voice of thanksgiving as set forth in My Word is as follows: when you have a problem, first pray to Me and receive your Scripture that addresses your problem, remember that nothing is too wonderful for Me to do, and then worship by throwing yourself face down and proclaiming praise that the answer is granted, and take a stand and shout and sing the praise of My glory (goodness, power, and presence with you) in a VERY LOUD voice as you declare the victory before you see it.
I love you. Lift up the cup of Salvation and call on My Name. The mantle of praise will fall on you and out will go that spirit of fainting. You will become new and strong. But you have to sing and shout loud. And let My Face shine on you by getting in the light of My Word. My Word gives life and healing. Eat it, drink it, bathe in it. And above all, sing it. A new song in your mouth will let Me pull you out of the pit to put your feet on a height.
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation is from the LORD.” And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Jonah 2:7-10.