Sunday, September 4, 2011

Psalm 145 - Proclamation of Praise

LINK: Psalm 145

BACKGROUND

I pray through this psalm during my "Morning Affirmations" from Face to Face: Praying the Scriptures for Intimate Worship on a regular basis. In addition, it was part of the prayer verses I prayed through today in the other section of this prayer book! So, God has given me a double dose of this great psalm in preparation for this post. It is a favorite to pray through because it is so majestic. It is such an "in your face" proclamation of the greatness of God!


By the way, I have been given permission by the author to make a copy of them: The handout is HERE. The audio is HERE

Psalm 145 is part of the set of "praise psalms" that conclude the book of Psalms. Psalms 144-146 are models of personal praise because we see the personal pronouns I, me, and my.  Psalms 147-150 conclude the book of Psalms with examples of corporate praise. 

Psalm 145 is one of my top five favorites (I know you keep hearing that, but most of my favorites are Psalms of David!). It speaks of the wonderful attributes of our great God!


REFLECTION/APPLICATION

I love what The Daily Walk says about this Psalm:

How many times did you worship God last week? Perhaps your first reaction to that question was to count how often you attended church: Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening, mid-week . . . but read Psalm 145 and you'll come away with a totally different picture of what it means to worship God. 
In verse 2, David describes worship as the daily joy of his life: "Every day I will praise you and extol your name forever and ever." If David were alive today, this psalm might read something like this: "All through my day, as I drive on the road, work in the office, meet with clients, tend to the home, my thoughts will be on You and Your praiseworthy actions for me." 
Worship can take place even when you are nowhere near a church. You can worship God with your children at bedtime (145:4), \or declare His greatness on a crowded bus to those who do not even know Him (145:11-12). And if you think you've exhausted your thoughts about God or run out of things to worship Him for, remember verse 3: "His greatness no one can fathom." 
Using one of David's suggestions from Psalm 145, spend a few minutes right now worshiping God. (June 2008, p. 34)
  PRAYER

You know what to do :) I also heartily suggest praying through the "Morning Affirmations" that I linked to above on a daily basis!

1 comment:

Carol Ann Weaver said...

I have been praying through Praying the Scriptures after a break of a few years. Now, I think I will go back to praying the Morning Affirmations too. We can worship God everywhere!