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A FIXED HEART (IV)
LORD’S DAY, APRIL 25
Psalm 57:6-11

Psalm 147:1-20

 

“…I will sing and give praise.”

 

A FIXED HEART (IV)
 
The note of trust in God’s majesty provides a bridge to the second part of the psalm where David turns to that greatest of all expressions of trust: he praises God. In fact this is the focal point of the fixedness of David’s heart ‒ his statement in verse 7 leads to this. His heart is fixed on God, and fixed on trusting in God; therefore he is fixed in his determination to “sing and give praise” (v 7).
 
Thus we find him rising up early in the morning (v 8), with his instruments of music, to render worship and praise to God at the beginning of the day. Is it not a fact of common experience, that those thoughts with which we begin the day, are often the same ones which occupy us throughout the day? Yet how many of us will rise from our beds with an immediate and settled commitment to begin the day by praising God?
 
And without this commitment, how easily will our thoughts become distracted from God, and bogged down by the difficulties of the hour! If we begin each day with our thoughts enmeshed in worldly concerns and rituals, then the clouds which gather over the course of the day may easily obscure our view of heaven; but if each morning finds us rising already above the clouds, to kneel before the throne of God…! If God is to be “exalted… above the heavens,” if His glory is “above all the earth” (v 11), then let us meet Him “above the heavens” and “above all the earth,” and praise Him there: it will be to us a foretaste of eternity that will soothe the bitter taste of earthly calamity.
 
Then, indeed, our commitment to praise God, even in the midst of distress, becomes not only a private affair but a public witness and testimony. Like David, we will praise the Lord “among the people,” and sing to Him “among the nations” (v 9). It is by this spirit and attitude of constant praise that our trust in God may most clearly and most effectively be manifested to the world. Dear reader, know that a heart fixed on praising God always will lead to a life of continual testimony to the mercy and truth of God!
 
THOUGHT: “…it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.” (Ps 147:1)

PRAYER: “I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people…” (Ps 57:9)

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