The Psalms.2

Caleb Hancock Apr 26, 2010

What do you think pleases God more, your passionate feelings about Him, or careful, thoughtful meditation on Him?

While I think you could argue for both, I often tend to think that my feelings about God are what he cares for most. That's why I was surprised when I read Psalm 48 recently. Here it is:

Zion, the City of Our God

A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.

48:1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised
 in the city of our God!
His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth,
Mount Zion, in the far north,
the city of the great King.
3 Within her citadels God
has made himself known as a fortress.

4 For behold, the kings assembled;
they came on together.
5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded;
they were in panic; they took to flight.
6 Trembling took hold of them there,
anguish as of a woman in labor.
7 By the east wind you shattered
the ships of Tarshish.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen
in the city of the Lord of hosts,
in the city of our God,
which God will establish forever. Selah

9 We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,
in the midst of your temple.
10 As your name, O God,
so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
11 Let Mount Zion be glad!
Let the daughters of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments!

12 Walk about Zion, go around her,
number her towers,
13 consider well her ramparts,
go through her citadels,
that you may tell the next generation
14 that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.

 

Did you catch it in there? Verse 9 says: "We have thought on your steadfast love, O God". The psalmist here has given us a great example to follow.

C.H. Spurgeon in his commentary on this psalm said, "Holy Men are thoughtful men; they do not suffer God's wonders to pass before their eyes and melt into forgetfulness, but they meditate deeply upon them."

We can, instructed by this psalm, be compelled to meditate and think on the Lord; who He is (v. 1) and what He has done (v.3-8). 

And what naturally follows from thinking on the Lord, and who He is, is praise overflowing from our hearts and mouths! (v.10-11)

So, let us not only be thinkers of the Lord, but proclaimers of His grace!

Even more than the Psalmist, for the Christian, God has revealed His personal and boundless love for us in that Jesus took on flesh and bore the punishment that we deserve to receive on account of our sin. He satisfied God the Father's righteous wrath. It's gone! And He has credited, and given us His own righteousness, qualifying us to stand before Him and to have eternal life.

As a song from our recent past puts it, the message of this psalm is as follows:

"When I think about the Lord, how He saved me, how He raised me, how He filled me with the Holy Ghost, how he healed me to the uttermost, when I think about the Lord, how He picked me up, turned me around, how He set my feet on solid ground...it makes me want to shout 'Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus! Lord, You're worthy of all the glory and all the honor and all the praise!"