December 21
“I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High,” Psalm 9:1-2.
How would you respond to the question, “Do you feel like singing?” Would your response be a positive one – “Oh, yes! I have a lot of things to sing about!” – or would your response be a negative one (which so many people are inclined to give) – “What’s there in life to sing about?”
Through reading and meditating upon the Book of Psalms, the Song Book of the Bible, we can be motivated to sing and rejoice. David, the psalmist, wrote most of the 150 Psalms, and he was moved by the Holy Spirit to sing praises to God for many reasons.
Oh, David could have reacted to life’s situations by complaining constantly, as many people do today. He had many difficulties and problems. He had occupational problems as the king of the children of Israel. There were those who envied and hated him. His son, Absalom, was an agitator and rabble-rouser, of which we have many today. He told the people that they would not have to work so hard and that they would have a better life if they would follow him rather than his father David. Absalom talked like many politicians today, who try to persuade people to vote for them with promises of government handouts for which they need not work. Basically, they lie to the public.
David also had marriage and family problems, many of his own making. For a time, he even lost his faith and trust in God.
However, when he came to his spiritual senses, he praised God, and he promised, “I will tell of all Your marvelous works.” Yes, he wrote, spoke, and witnessed of God’s marvelous work of creation. David knew, as every child of God knows, that only the one true God could create everything out of nothing in the period of six normal days. And we have the promise of God, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease,” Genesis 8:22. Praise God for this promise with your whole heart! Tell others about His marvelous work of creation.
David also knew that one of his descendants would be the promised Messiah and Savior of the whole world. As a sinner, he was glad and rejoiced in the promise of a Savior, who would make the supreme sacrifice to redeem all people from sin, death, and the power of the devil. The evidence of David’s faith in the promised Savior is recorded in the Messianic Psalms that he wrote, in which he praised and thanked God.
If you are a Christian, who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and your Savior, who fulfilled the Commandments in your place and who took all your sins upon Himself and died on the cross to wash those sins away, then with the psalmist you too will lift up your voice to sing praises to God for His marvelous works. Tell others about His marvelous work of redemption!
“The Lord, my God, be praised,
My Light, my Life from heaven,
My Maker, who to me,
Hath soul and body given;
My Father, who doth shield
And keep me day by day,
Doth make each moment yield
New blessings on my way.
The Lord, my God, be praised,
My Trust, my Life from heaven,
The Father’s own dear Son,
Whose life for me was given;
Who for my sin atoned
With His most precious blood,
Who giveth me by faith
The highest heav’nly good.” Amen.