Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Psalm 96:1-4a – O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.  Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.  Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.  (NRSV)

Have you thought to mention out loud any time lately what God has done for you?  Have you thanked or praised God for it, or even just reminded yourself?  There are so many psalms that call us to praise God, and yet, too often days go by when we’ve spent more time worrying about what we don’t have or what we still want or what we hope won’t happen than we have praising God for what he has done.

The thing about focusing on what God has done is that it has transformative power.  You may be having a rotten day, but if you recall that God woke you up this morning, other blessings start to appear as well.  Gratitude changes us.  We start to realize how much we take for granted, and our lives, or at least our perceptions of them, take a turn for the better.

The praise that the psalms call us to goes beyond mere thanksgiving though.  At some level, gratitude is still about us; we’re giving thanks for what God did for us.  Praise, on the other hand, is more about God than it is about us.  We praise God, not because our lives are particularly great, but because God is great.

Praise gets us out of our own little selves and restores our perspective by reminding us who is God (God) and who is just human (us).  It’s amazing how easily we forget that sometimes, and yet, the simple habit of grateful praise can bring us back down to where we belong every time.  There are 150 psalms.  I didn’t check, but I’m guessing every one of them has at least one line calling us to praise God.  How many reminders will it take?