More exuberant praise to God. Hopefully it doesn’t get boring for you, but rather gets you going on a track to offer your own praise to God. I’m ashamed to confess that in the days when I didn’t appreciate Scripture, this was dull reading for me. If that is you, please take that confession and concern to God, and ask Him to change you so that these become a treasured starting point for your own genuine and joyful praise to God. He wants to share the kind of intimacy with you that such praise will bring, so you can expect Him to do it.
As I have done in past posts, let us use these psalms as lists of ways in which we can praise God and things for which we can praise God. As starting points, they give us the freedom to expand any of the ideas that speak to us, so please keep an eye open for any of these items that do speak to you.
- Singing praise to God is one way to praise Him.
- Giving thanks to God is another way to praise Him.
- When the psalmist says that God is great above all gods, is he implying that there exist other gods above which God can rule as King? Let’s face it: we still worship other gods today – not in the form of deities and statues as they did in their day, but in the form of things that we treasure above the one true God. Do you value God above anything or anyone you value? If not, then you don’t value Him enough, and as a seeker you should be asking Him to transform your values. Even when we confess the shameful truth and seek His help to be transformed, we are offering Him our worship. One way you participate in that is to be deliberate and lavish in your worship of Him.
- If you lack appreciation for God’s greatness, contemplate the idea that He holds the depths of the earth and the highest mountains in His hands, while you shovel earth.
- The clouds and thick darkness that are all around Him speak of how unfathomable He is to us, unless He reveals Himself to us. He is holy, He is so other to us.
- Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. How blessed we are that such a powerful ruler rules in righteousness and justice.
- All people see His glory: it is evident to all. We can’t miss it, if we will only take the time and make the effort to contemplate it.
- We should expect to have new reasons to sing about God’s marvelous works. That implies that He should always be doing those marvelous works in our lives. If that is what He wants to do, we should be seeking and expecting those marvelous works – not for the sake of the works themselves, but for the sake of His glory, for the display of His glory. Seeking His marvelous works in our lives, choosing to exercise faith in Him to do marvelous works, is an act of worship. Recall that since His ways are higher than our ways, His ideas of marvelous works might not be consistent with ours. Choosing to trust Him to know what works are most marvelous is another act of worship.
- One of the marvelous things He has done is working out His plan for our salvation. Do you see His salvation as a marvelous work? Notice that the psalm says He worked salvation for Him. Does He need saved? That salvation is actually for us. He sees our salvation as a benefit to Him. Why do you suppose that is?
- Joyful noises to God are so apt that the psalmist sees nature as singing for joy. Exuberant joy should be natural for us, and is an act of worship. He gives one reason why all the earth should sing for joy, that of His judging the world with righteousness. This, of course, is only one of the many reasons to sing for joy to God. But that one reason is enough; Scripture teaches us that all of nature groans under the curse brought about by sin, implying that when the curse is banished all creation will be relieved.
Again, these are starting points for our worship of God. Can you take just one of them as a starting point today and spend some time lavishing your worship on Him in prayer or song or testimony or silent contemplation?
Psalm 95 says that God loathed the generation of His people who put Him to the test, because they went astray in their hearts and did not know His way. I don’t believe that this means that loathing was His actual feeling for those people, because His word speaks much about His love for all of us. Rather, that is the poet’s way of describing God’s attitude toward them based on His actions toward them. His actions would indicate loathing; He acted loathingly toward them, but I don’t believe He felt loathing. Isn’t it awful to think that God was compelled to act against His people as if He loathed them? He refused them entrance into the rest of the Promised Land; that tells us that He will refuse us entrance into His Promised Land of Heaven also, if He says He will. How important it is for us to know Him and love Him! Worship is a vital part of that, and thus is vitally important for us to be doing. Today’s reading is our reminder and our opportunity to choose to do it.