Daily Devotions for Difficult Times [28] Praise the Lord!

The Blessing of Singing

We all know instinctively, and perhaps by stories people have told us, the value of singing. In our lockdown world people are joining online choirs or singing from balconies; in one street, a church minister led the locals in Amazing Grace.

Even the scientists agree that singing does us good.  In an article in the British Medical Journal, entitled, Sing Your Heart Out: community singing as part of mental health recovery, they comment on the value of one community project:

"We heard the participants calling the initiative a 'lifesaver' and that it 'saved their sanity.' Others said they simply wouldn't be here without it, they wouldn't have managed. So, we quickly began to see the massive impact it was having. All of the participants we spoke to reported positive effects on their mental health as a direct result of taking part in the singing workshops. For some, it represented one component of a wider programme of support. For others, it stood out as key to their recovery or maintenance of health. But the key thing for everyone was that the Sing Your Heart Out model induced fun and happiness."

Many titles in the book of Psalms contain the Hebrew description mizmor - which means "this is a poem to be sung with stringed instruments." Mizmor was then translated psalmos in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and that's where we get our English title, Psalms.  The book of Psalms is a book of poems to be sung with stringed instrument.

If Methodism was "born in song," it seems to me that every true renewing or refreshing of the soul involves song. "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord..." is the exhortation of Scripture (Ephesians 5:19). (The "speak to one another" reminds us that congregational singing is aimed at edifying others.)

In these gathering-free days are you singing in front of your laptop / telly each Sunday morning!? Is it a performance to watch or a participation?

Singing the praises of God does our soul good, whether we can sing in tune or not.

Our devotionals this morning, continue in the Psalms, now we turn to Psalm 103, one of the best known and loved praise psalms of all. We take the Psalm at a different pace from Psalm 23, now a few verses at a time.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Talking to Yourself

When 'I were a lad' talking to yourself was regarded as a mental health problem, and probably if I walked in the streets talking to myself outloud today, that would still be regarded as a little odd. (Though I regularly pass a man in my area praying outloud - and sometimes singing praises - during his lunchtime walks.)

The truth is that we all talk to ourselves internally, and it is a necessary part of our make-up. Inwardly we weigh this thought and that idea, and arrive at wiser conclusions for having done so.

The psalmist, who sets up the pattern for all true believers, is ALWAYS talking to himself. In these first five verses of Psalm 103 his conversation is a command: he commands himself to Praise God.

Why? Because, when left to our undirected selves, we too infrequently praise God. Without a command, we fail to do our souls good or give glory to God, regularly enough.

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits-

Why Inmost Being?

David, and it is David for this psalm, urges his inward being to praise God. Is this because it is too easy to give lip service rather than heart worship?

As our family gather together around our church's YouTube Sunday morning services (found HERE if you don't live in Worcester), my boys tell me that I'm not singing in time (that isn't all they say about my singing.) Maybe! I do know, however, that I am singing from my heart. 

It is possible to lisp words half-heartedly, and I think men are more guilty of this than our sisters, rather than belting them out from the heart, which we ought to do.

So sing up brothers!

So David encourages hismelf, and us in the process, to make sure that the heart, the seat of all our emotions, the real deep we, is engaged as we praise the Lord.

Recall all of God's Soul Blessings

David now lists all of God's soul blessings to fire up worship:

³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

"Soul" commands David, "reel off all the ways God has blessed you and thank God for them."

First off, the forgiveness of our sins - correction, the forgiveness of ALL our sins. Through the single sacrifice of Jesus, all our sins have been dealt with and paid on the nail.

Then through the Spirit 's work in our heart, all the twisted diseases of our souls, the wayward paths, the crooked thoughts, the perverse attitudes, little by little are being fixed. 

Oh, I know some thorns will not be removed until the world to come. 

Then he redeems our lives from the pit. The pit or dungeon in Scripture is always a negative thing. Both Joseph and Jeremiah get thrown into one of them, with ill intention.

Our souls were headed for destruction - both an empty life in this world and eternal damnation in the next - until God stepped in and lifted us out of the pit. 

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.

Then he "crowns me with love and compassion."  Do we remember how the prodigal's father treated his repentant son? He put a ring on his finger, a fine coat on his back and shoes on his feet! Then the banquet. God has done that with us, in making us adopted sons, and even brothers of his one and only true Son, though we deserve none of it.

What we deserve is God's wrath, but in the place of punishment, he puts a crown of love and compassion upon us!

And finally, he satisfies the desires of the soul with "good things" so that our  "youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

There are whole sermons just there!

Before Christ found us, our souls found a sort of satisfaction in evil things, empty things, futile things. But the idols we once worshipped did not really satisfy our God-hungry souls. 

The great Augustine of Hippo, who chased a thousand idols before he was converted, put it like this:

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

Have you noticed how quickly rockers age? The dumb idols of our fallen nature, whether drink, food, drugs, sex, fame, whatever, do not bring men to the fountain of youth, instead they weather them into old craggy sea dogs.

But David can say that since his soul has tasted of the Lord, since the desires of his heart have been truly satisfied with living waters, he feels renewed, refreshed, as if he was a young man.  

“They shall still bear fruit in old age: they shall be fresh and flourishing" is the promise of God to the godly in the winter of their lives (Psalm 92:14)

The eagle is a perennial symbol of effortless flying. Using thermals it seems barely to flap its long long wings!

"Using thermals" is the key. It rides off the back of air currents. It's effort comes from without.

So for the worshipping, praising and resting soul.  "Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31). 

Perhaps we thought that the Psalm had begun too energetically,"get yourself praising!"Now he is floating on eagles' wings.

The psalmist knows full well that personal self-discipline in the department of praise leads to airborne soul-flight, lifted high by the Spirit of Jesus, the Jesus who promises to those who believe, "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

How is my praise life? How is yours? This psalm is a gentle encouragement to praise God for all our many spiritual blessings.

A SONG FOR THE DAY

"200 million people can't be wrong!" (Sometimes.) That's how many times our song for this new day has been viewed on YouTube. (If Ads get in the way, download an Adblocker. I have.)

Bless the Lord, oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Bless the Lord, oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

Matt Redman

SING it HERE.

 A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our loving Father in heaven,

We thank you for this new and beautiful Tuesday. 

We thank you for the gift of music, and especially the joy and blessing of singing your praises.

Help us to teach our souls to sing your praises.

We bless you for the multitude of spiritual blessings you have favoured our souls with. We thank you for the forgiveness of all our sins, for the healing of our soul's diseases, for redeeming our life from the pit, crowning us with love and compassion, satisfying our soul's desires with good things and for renewing our youth.

Teach us to be thankful people, always thankful.

In Christ's Name, through whom all these blessings flow, we ask these things,

Amen