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| “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice…” |
| —Psalm 95:6-7 |
In quoting Isaiah 40 at the opening of his indescribably fabulous The Messiah, George Frideric Handel uses a tenor soloist to capture the heart and voice of God when He instructs the Prophet Isaiah to “Comfort my people.” Herein, God acknowledges that He has people who need comforting.
One hundred years later, Felix Mendelssohn carries this same theme into his great oratorio Elijah. Quoting Joel 2:13, Mendelssohn has another tenor soloist declare: “Ye people rend your hearts, rend your hearts and not your garments.” Again, the people of God need the comfort of God. And, they need to repent of their sin and receive God’s gracious forgiveness through the Savior not yet born.
Both of these great musical works celebrate the people of God—those whom He has chosen to belong to Himself. What a wonderful, even glorious, experience to sit in an audience and hear such tremendous truth proclaimed with such enthusiasm and skill.
We who belong to God through Christ are, of all people, most blessed. To have access to our loving Father through His Son, Jesus; to have the indwelling guidance of the Holy Spirit to direct our pathway; to experience overwhelming joy at knowing we belong to the very God of the universe—it simply boggles the mind and fills the heart with both humility and great celebration.
The Psalmist declares in Psalm 95:6-7:
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice…
As we begin a new day, let us, indeed, celebrate the fact that we are the people of God. And, let us bow down and worship Him for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture.
