In this semi-acrostic psalm (it is missing the letter “nun”), we are called to praise God. We are called to make known His fame to the generation of people to follow. David entreats us to tell of God’s greatness and goodness (1-7), grace and kingdom (8-14), and desire to hear and answer our prayers (15-21). Do people understand this about God as they see your life and hear your words? After reading verse one, we should understand that praising God is not determined by whether we feel like praising Him no more than forgiving another or loving another is based on a feeling. Each one of these is based on a conscious choice to do so. We must choose to praise, forgive, and love despite what we feel or our circumstances.
After reading through this psalm, you should see God as “active, compassionate, faithful, generous, good, gracious, great, judge, king, loving, majestic, near, powerful, righteous, and watchful” (Elwell, 1995). With God being these, it is only natural that the psalm uses nine separate terms for our response: extol, bless, praise, declare, meditate, speak, utter, sing, and make known. Are you doing this?
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God is so faithful to us. His love and generosity is unending. When we seek God and call on Him for help, He will give us what we need. Knowing that we don’t deserve any of his greatness, we should continually praise Him and thank Him. It is such a blessing to know that God cares for us so much that He continualy watches over us and listens to every single one of our prayers.