Thought for the Day – Praise the Lord [Part 1]
Nathan Severs shares his Thought For The Day from the Psalms
How ever you’re feeling about Sunday’s developments in the government’s strategies to curb the spread of coronavirus. How ever you’re feeling coronavirus or not. For my next couple of thoughts, I just want to allow some of the psalms to give you a reminder that God is still worthy of our praise.
The last 7 psalms all start with the exhortation or the writers own desire to praise the Lord. Perhaps you could read one of these a day for the next week? Perhaps you could read them all today!
Psalm 144 praises the Lord the deliverer and provider. It speaks of deliverance from the enemy and looks forward to a time when we’ll be free from any adversary and be blessed in every way. It ends with the statement: ‘blessed is the people whose God is the Lord’.
Psalm 145 speaks of God’s unfathomable greatness, His mighty acts, wonderful works and great deeds, His goodness and righteousness, His grace, compassion and love, His trustworthiness and faithfulness and His closeness to us as He watches over and hears us. Just one of these qualities would make God worth praising. The psalmist acknowledges that because of what God is like the right response is to speak in praise of the Lord.
Psalm 146 reminds us that other people or things on earth are not worthy of praise – only God is. Again this psalm picks up on some of God’s characteristics as reasons to praise Him. He made everything, He cares for the outcast and oppressed – those many in the world don’t even acknowledge and He reigns forever – praise the Lord!
Psalm 147 reflects that it’s not a chore to praise God – it is good and pleasant and fitting – we should want to praise Him! Then we get another list of reasons why God is praiseworthy – He is a healer, he is a powerful creator and sustainer of all He’s made, He delights in those who fear Him promising them peace and protection and He has revealed all this to us in His word. The implication throughout all these psalms is that God is like this and no one or no thing could ever come close to being so worthy of our praise.
Perhaps we don’t see all of these aspects of God every day but this is what God is like every day. Perhaps start with what you can acknowledge about God from today and praise him for that. And the more we look out for things to praise God for over the coming days, the more things we’ll notice.
Praise the Lord because it is pleasant and fitting. Praise the Lord because of who He is and what He does. Praise the Lord.