Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!1
Throughout this season of Lent, we went through the Psalms highlighting different moments of David’s life. His ups and downs; moments of closeness with the Lord, as well as some of his hurting and lamenting, were all cataloged here with the 150 Psalms. We know that the majority of the Psalms were written by David himself including this very last one, which to me sums up all of the Psalms perfectly. Here the psalmist’s message is quite clear: Praise the Lord! It doesn’t matter how you do it, just praise the Lord! This Psalm doesn’t give reason or circumstance, which makes it pretty clear that no matter in what state we find ourselves, we can praise!
Praise God in His Sanctuary—The Lord’s Sanctuary is anywhere He is! God’s presence isn’t limited to churches and temples, it is EVERYWHERE! You can praise Him right where you are, kneeling at your bed or at the top of the tallest mountain, God is there!
Praise Him for His mighty deeds—What has the Lord done? It doesn’t say to praise Him for the deeds He’s done only for you, so that makes this verse endless! What has the Lord done? EVERYTHING! Just look around at creation itself, humanity, every detail of our existence, and then praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise the Lord with any means possible—In the days when this psalm was written, instruments and voices were the choice means, but you might be saying, well, I don’t play any instruments and I can’t sing! Fortunately for us, there are those who can and have recorded beautiful worship songs for us to praise along to, all at the click of a button. Turn on that worship music and sing along!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! — It can’t get any clearer than that! If there is breath in your lungs today then you have more than enough reason to praise the Lord! So, what are you waiting for? Take a deep breath right now and PRAISE THE LORD!
Suggested Prayer: Dear Excellent Lord, there are countless things to praise you for, but this morning I want to praise you for my salvation. I praise you for dying on that cruel cross and taking on my sin and the sins of this world in the most shameful way. I praise you because of the great love you showed me by shedding your precious blood for me so that my sin could be washed away. But most of all, I praise you because death could not defeat you and you are alive, oh Awesome God! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
1. Psalm 150 (ESV).
Today’s Encounter was written by: Veronica B.
All articles on this website are written by
Richard (Dick) Innes unless otherwise stated.