Worship for Today: Worshipping our wonderful Lord!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Psalm 150:1-2,
 
"Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness."

 

In this, the final psalm in the book of Psalms, all are invited to praise the Lord. In the first verse, those who inhabit the environs of heaven are encouraged to praise the Lord and in the last verse we read, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." All life is to praise him!

 

No need for folks to go around today saying, "Praise the Lord", as the invitation or exhortation to do so has already been given, often and loudly. On the other hand, since there does seem to be so little praise offered to the Lord these days, maybe we should be encouraging others to do so. But what we certainly should be doing is praising the Lord ourselves. We don't do that by inviting others to do so, but by following the prescription provided us in verse 2. We should praise the Lord for "his acts of power" and for "his surpassing greatness". In other words, for what he does and who he is. It requires us to observe something of the Lord, for us to be moved by that something and then to extol, to tell of it, to him and others. 

 

Throughout Scripture we find that praise of the Lord, or the worship of the Lord, is always based on what the Lord has done or what he is like. Observations of the mighty deeds of the Lord, the wonderful things he has done should always move us to expressions of thankfulness, appreciation, excitement, joy, awe, reverence, and at times, fear. God, sending us his Son to take our punishment for sin, adopting us as his own children, promising us an inheritance in the resurrection, sending us his Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to change us from within, to empower us to serve him and others, all of these and so many other works of the Lord are always grounds for our worship of him.

 

Observations of what our God is like are aways grounds for our worship of him as well. His many perfections radiating a glory in his majestic splendor that showcase his tremendous love, his patience with us, his mercy, his kindness, the horrific nature of his wrath and judgment are all grounds for our worship of him. His unchanging nature, his fair, just and honest nature, his faithfulness in fulfilling all of his promises, his great power and wisdom are all grounds for our worship of him.

 

In the previous psalm we read of our Lord delighting in his people as they are praising him, Psalm 149:4. What an opportunity that is provided us in this life to share in the telling of how wonderful our Lord is!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com