The Service of Praise





Psalm 135:1–4 (NLT) Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord! Praise him, you who serve the Lord, 2 you who serve in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; celebrate his lovely name with music. 4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own special treasure.

Psalm 135 begins the last section of the Psalms. They are known as the "Hallelujah" Psalms. The begin and end with a call to PRAISE the LORD! 

 There's something very interesting about these verses in Psalm 135. The peopel who are called to praise Him are the ones who have been brought closest to Him.

 The praise of the Lord is the responsibility of the Lord's chosen people.  They have every reason to praise Him for He has made them and given the all that is theirs.

 The Lord is sovereign and in control. Notice this verse:




Psalm 135:6 (NLT) The Lord does whatever pleases him throughout all heaven and earth, and on the seas and in their depths.

The Psalm bookends with another call for those closest to the Lord to praise the Lord:




Psalm 135:19–21 (NLT) O Israel, praise the Lord! O priests—descendants of Aaron—praise the Lord! 20 O Levites, praise the Lord! All you who fear the Lord, praise the Lord! 21 The Lord be praised from Zion, for he lives here in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

It is a special calling to be near God. And we are to burst forth in praise. This Psalm had to be in mind when Paul applies these same truths to the former Gentiles in Ephesus... Notice the wording of being chosen, blessed by and special to God:



Ephesians 1:3–6 (NLT) All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.

It is our wonderful privilege to belong to the Lord, to be His chosen people, and to be blessed by Him in all things. And for that we praise the Lord.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God’s View of You

Sometimes I think we imagine that God is mostly disappointed with us. That He puts up with us and bears with us because He has to (after all He is love), but most of the time our glaring weaknesses weary Him and make His day miserable. Of course, this is the devil’s doing in our minds. The truth of scripture bears out that the world has to get staunch-raving evil before God is totally weary of us. And the stories in the Old Testament remind us with each passing character that God is patient, loving and kind to His very flawed inconsistent servants. Saul is a case study of this. His lineage will not hold the kingdom, that has already been stated from the mishap of offering the sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive in 1 Samuel 13. His next great gaff will happen in the chapter to come in 1 Samuel 15 where his own kingship will be taken from him and the anointing placed on one soon to come. Yes, God will regret making Saul king and we’ll talk about that next. But for now...
Read more

The Stain of Slavery

One of the greatest pains in my heart over the history of the church is the fact that many "Bible-believing" Christians used the Bible to promote, continue, and enable slavery in America's past. It may have happened elsewhere, but I'm an American, and I know it happened here. Then, some repeatedly make the claim because of a tiny amount of verses where God informs Israel on how to take slaves, it means the Bible is a pro-slavery document. How absurd. The overarching narrative of the Bible is that God sets the slaves free. The second book testifies to this part of God's character.  Getting to Jeremiah's day, one of the reasons Israel's nation was handed over to exile was because they enslaved each other. This attitude was so engrained into the culture of Israel that they had a hard time giving up slavery even in the face of national catastrophe.  In Jeremiah 34, the king is promised that he will die in Babylon, but he will die in peace. Jeremiah 34:3–5 (ESV...
Read more

Leaders Who Later Fail

Remember Johanan from Jeremiah 41? The man who saved many others from the threats of the murderous coup? He seemed like a noble leader. But time reveals a lot.  Jeremiah 42:5–6 (ESV)  Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” These are the words of the presumptive leaders of Israel in the land while the nation is in exile. The previous chapter saw a hero arise to protect a few remaining survivors. His name was Johanan. On the surface, he seems like a good man, seeking the will of the Lord in his leadership position. Jeremiah returns with directives from the Lord: Jeremiah 42:10 (ESV) If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant y...
Read more