Red-eared slider , Trachemys scripta elegans and male Mallard in Golden Gate Park by Brocken Inaglory
Good morning, friends!
Psalm 100
1MAKE A joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands!
2Serve the Lord with gladness! Come before His presence with singing!
3Know (perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!
5For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.
Psalm of Praise: The 1828 Webster’s dictionary states that a Psalm reveals, “A sacred song or hymn; a song composed on a divine subject and in praise of God.” David wrote this particular Psalm (he wrote so many beautiful hymns.)
I like manuals for Legos. 🙂 When the boys used to get elaborate models to build and need help (alas no more on the helping part), we would sit down and page by page there would be pictures of the lego needed and where to put it exactly. I loved that.
This Psalm is a bit like that…Each verse begins with a different command of what to do to praise the Lord, except for five. How to praise. Where to praise. Good stuff. Our pastor went through the Psalm on Saturday night but I wanted to look through the Hebrew and study it with you all. Want to come along?
1MAKE A joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands!
ruwa` –
1) to shout a war-cry or alarm of battle
2) to sound a signal for war or march
3) to shout in triumph (over enemies)
4) to shout in applause
5) to shout (with religious impulse)
6) to cry out in distress
Which makes me think of the story from Joshua 6 and God commands the Israelites to walk around the enclosure of Jericho for seven days and on the seventh day, RUWA!
I’m all about praising God with dancing and singing all over the place. Hence, Joshua and I sit in the upper deck near the top so Cara can worship with abandon. I love to worship with religious impulse. Yet, I’ll be very honest. There are times when God and I talk during worship and I am quiet. Or He asks me to be on my knees in humble quiet. Or it takes everything within me to praise and keep my brain on worship. Worship is not about me. Or you.
2Serve the Lord with gladness!
1) to labour, work, do work
2) to work for another, serve another by labour
3) to serve as subjects
4) to serve (God)
5) to serve (with Levitical service)
What does it mean to serve the Lord with gladness? Here’s some more verses to help us understand.
Psalm 63:4 4So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name…
Psalm 107:22And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and rehearse His deeds with shouts of joy and singing!
Acts 2:46And day after day they regularly assembled in the temple with united purpose, and in their homes they broke bread [including the Lord’s Supper]. They partook of their food with gladness and simplicity and generous hearts. 47Constantly praising God and being in favor and goodwill with all the people; and the Lord kept adding [to their number] daily those who were being saved [from spiritual death].
Philippians 4:4Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, gladden yourselves in Him]; again I say, Rejoice!
Come before His presence with singing!
This phrase “come before His presence” actually is the word in Hebrew for the face of God.( in front of, before, to the front of, in the presence of, in the face of, at the face or front of, from the presence of, from before, from before the face of) How often do we think about the fact when we turn on Christian music or walk into our church that we are coming before the face of God? Humbling. Very, very humbling.
Psalm 424These things I [earnestly] remember and pour myself out within me: how I went slowly before the throng and led them in procession to the house of God [like a bandmaster before his band, timing the steps to the sound of music and the chant of song], with the voice of shouting and praise, a throng keeping festival.
Psalm 95:2Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
2 Chronicles 31:2And Hezekiah appointed the priests and the Levites after their divisions, each man according to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings and for peace offerings, to minister, to give thanks, and to praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord.
3Know (perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God!
YÄ•hovah-“the existing One”
1) the proper name of the one true God
a) unpronounced except with the vowel pointings of 0136
‘elohiym-
c) works or special possessions of God
d) the (true) God
e) God
David has now shifted to object of our praise. The only One due our praise.
Psalm 46:10Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth!
Psalm 95: 6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication]. 7For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Deuteronomy 4:39Know, recognize, and understand therefore this day and turn your [mind and] heart to it that the Lord is God in the heavens above and upon the earth beneath; there is no other.
What does this mean to me? To you? Selah. Pause and calmly think about that. And now, my dears, I’m going to pause and pick up tomorrow.
Pray on. Pray on.
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