‘For the Lord is good and His love endures forever…’ (Psalm 100:5)
Read Psalm 100
Psalm 100 is perhaps best known to us all in and through the words of the well know hymn, All People That On Earth Do Dwell. It’s a Psalm that unashamedly tells the whole world that the Lord is God and good and then calls upon us all to come before God in worship. It’s a Psalm that was most probably first sung by the people of Israel during certain aspects of Temple worship and is one of a group of eight often known ‘Royal Psalms’ because they celebrate the sovereignty of God – indeed it is often said that of these Royal Psalms, Psalm 100 is almost like a doxology.
When we look at the Psalm we see that it speaks of two characteristics of what true worship actually involves. The first of these is that worship should be joyful and secondly, it should be universal for we are all God’s people, ‘…it is He who made us…’ and we are all called to worship him, ‘Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, serve the Lord with gladness, come before Him with joyful songs…’ If we acknowledge and confess that God is our Lord and King, if we embrace His one and only Son as our Saviour, how can we approach Him with anything but joy in our hearts?
Of course we will all face dark and difficult days, we will all have days when we feel weighed down with many burdens, but even then, if we remember the words of our Lord, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give your rest…, then we can some to the Lord knowing that we are His people and that His love endures forever.
But ultimately, we are all called to worship and praise the Lord, not just because He created us and has taken us to Himself to be His own, but because He will always stay with us – and in a few days we will be reminded of this again when we recall the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Disciples at Pentecost, that same Holy Spirit who is with us today. Praise indeed be to the Lord!
Lord we worship and praise You because You alone are worthy of such praise. We give You thanks for Your enduring love and continued presence with us and ask that You would help us to share this love with others wherever we are and at all times. And all this we ask in Jesus name…Amen.
Question Of The Day: What are the eight ‘Royal Psalms’?