Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Yet Another Reason To Sing

In Psalm 98, as in many of the Psalms, God helps to understand more about who He is and what He is doing. In this Psalm and others He also says what we should be doing, and why. One of our primary tasks is to praise God with our voices, in singing and joyful shouts. We also praise Him with instruments. What is interesting is why.

In this Psalm it says God has revealed His righteousness to the nations and made know His salvation. His victory is from His right hand and right arm. God remembers His mercy and His faithfulness (not ours – His never fails). Even the creation is rejoicing. Why? Because He come to judge the earth. There have been many times when I saw judgement mentioned in the bible I thought it was a bad thing. I now understand it to mean that God comes to set things in order. His judgements are good because they set things in order as they should be according to what He has laid out in scripture. To the degree that we are “plugged in” to that, His judgements will appear good to us because they will continue to set things in order. For those that choose not to follow His ways, the judgements are not such a good thing, because He will eliminate the possibility for those wrong things to continue. But the really cool thing is that this happens when we praise God. We know He is seated on the praises of His people. Literally we praise Him and He comes and sets things right!

Prayer
Father, help us to praise You at all times. Thank You for revealing You righteousness and making known Your salvation. Come and set things right. In Jesus name. Amen.