Psalm 99; Luke 19:1-10

Psalm 99
God is King, He reigns, and He is holy. At least three times in this Psalm, God is called holy, vv. 3, 5, 9.
So what does this mean to us?
1. We should fear Him. v. 1. This kind of fear comes from respect and honoring God.
2. We should exalt Him, lift Him up and praise Him. v. 2, 3, 5, 9 
    How can we exalt the Lord? We can praise Him with our words being faithful in our worship. But   we must also be sure that our testimony is consistent with what we say. Pious words and ugly actions do not honor God and actually turn people away from Him.
3. We should bring our needs to Him. Think of that! We can appear before the King of the universe with our requests! Moses, Aaron, Samuel called on Him, and He answered them. He spoke to Israel, heard their prayers, guided them, forgave their sins, and corrected them when they went wrong. vv.6-8. These 3 Old Testament giants along with all of Israel are given as examples to us to encourage us to come to God just as they did.

Luke 19:1-10
The key thought of this section is found in v. 10, "For the Son of Man (Jesus) came to seek and save those who are lost." Jesus looked for him and saved him. The fact that he offered to give his wealth to the poor and repay those he had cheated was not meant as payment for his salvation but as evidence of his sincere belief and trust in Jesus. Those pesky hypocrites (which we have seen repeatedly) criticized Jesus for being a guest in the home of a "sinner" as if they themselves were not sinners! That's when Jesus reminded them that the very reason He came to earth was to seek and save lost people.