June 23, 2020
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Psalm? Here’s today’s reading:
Psalm 103 (ESV)
O Lord My God, You Are Very Great
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,....Continue Reading
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Oh the greatness and majesty of our God. causes the water to shimmer. It makes me think of my walks on the beach. I want to do a study on the face of God. Pastor, if you have any insight from the Jewish perspective, I would love it. There are so many references to His face turning away or shining on the people. “May His face shine upon you and give you peace” I’m going to study this some now. God bless everyone
No particular insight Cherrilynn! I expect you discovered that His face is an extension of His person and the relationship He allows us to have with Him and how His countenance, just like ours, reflects His thoughts about us…good and bad!
Something beautiful about a heart full of praise
This section of the Psalms, 100-110, are some of my favorites for the reasons that James Boice writes about. Boice’s comments about God rejoicing in His creation is eye-opening for me as well. Below is an excerpt from his writings on the Psalms.
Psalm 104 is a splendid praise psalm, one of the finest in the Psalter. The first part (vv. 1-30) follows the account of creation in Genesis 1 in a general way and shows how the entire cosmos rejoices in its good God. The second, surprising part (vv. 31-35) shows God rejoicing in his creation.
Do you ever think of God taking pleasure in his creation? We do not have trouble as Christians thinking how the creation rejoices in God, or should. But for many of us the thought that God likes what he has made and takes pleasure in it will be a new idea. It was for John Piper, the Minneapolis Baptist pastor and author who wrote The Pleasures of God. Before he wrote the sermons that eventually appeared as The Pleasures of God, Piper had already published a book titled Desiring God, which argued that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The theme of that book was the answer to the question “What is the chief end of man?” from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. (Answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”) In his second book, The Pleasures of God, Piper added the truth that he had discovered in the meantime, namely, that “we will be most satisfied in God when we know why God himself is most satisfied in God.”
Piper says—and so did Jonathan Edwards in one of his most masterful treatises—that God delights in creation because creation displays his glory and the glory of God is God’s chief end in all his works. Edwards called attention to this on the basis of Psalm 104, which says, “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in all his works.”
Psalms 103 and 104 go together. John Stott says, “Psalms 103 and 104 form a perfect pair and illustrate the balance of the Bible. Both begin and end with the words Praise the Lord, O my soul. Psalm 103 goes on to tell of the goodness of God in salvation, Psalm 104 of the greatness of God in creation (v. 1). Psalm 103 depicts God as the father with his children, Psalm 104 as the Creator with his creatures. Psalm 103 catalogues his benefits (v. 2), Psalm 104 his works (vv. 13, 24, 31).” One writer calls Psalm 104 “the most perfect hymn the world has ever produced,” a glowing but not unreasonable tribute to have made.
James Montgomery Boice, Psalms, Volume 2: Psalms 42-106, Paperback ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 838-839.
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the Lord.
May sinners be consumed from the earth,
And the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 103 and 104 are certainly connected as David continues the theme of praising God from our soul. Whereas in Psalm 103 he praises God for His benefits and focuses on relational aspects of what God provides and has established, in Psalm 104 he praises God for His creation and the beauty and power that is there. So much about God is reflected in creation. When we think about all it took to plan and carry it out and the wonder and creativity that we observe in it, it certainly reenforces God’s power, care and intelligence. David just takes time in this Psalm to point out and reflect on various aspects of creation and how important that is as it reenforces the kind of God He is and how worthy He is of our praise.
31May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works,
32who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
33I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!