This morning I felt led to reflect on Psalm 92, a bit of a diversion from my regular fare of scripture. For several years, I read a psalm a day, and I love the expressions of the pslamist's hearts found there.
Today my focus in on praise and fruitfulness, both covered in this Psalm to some extent. Here are the verses - Psalm 92:1-5,12-15 NIV:
[1] "It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High,
[2] proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night,
[3] to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
[4] For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
[5] How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!"
[12] "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
[13] planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.
[14] They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
[15] proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”
What a great verse to start the day! It is good to praise the Lord! The Hebrew word is towb and it means all sorts of things, all related to 'good'. It could be translated good, agreeable (to the senses), pleasant (to the higher nature), excellent (of its kind), rich, valuable in estimation, appropriate, glad, happy, prosperous, good understanding (of man's intellectual nature), kind, right (ethical). Wow, that word has much richness to it, and all of it is positive.
Praising the Lord, helps us take our eyes off ourselves, and look to him. I believe this is essential to our mental and spiritual well-being. When we remind ourselves of the praise-worthy characteristics of God, of all the things He has done for us, they become a lense through which we view our coming day.
Secondly we are called to proclaim His love in the morning, and what better thing to do while praising Him then to remind ourselves of our relationship to Him. We are His sons and daughters, beloved and favored! We are the apple of His eye, and His heart and thoughts are turned towards us! Because of our relationship with Him, His goodness flows down to us!
Thirdly, reminding ourselves of His faithfulness in the evening is a wonderful way to settle the day. Even on the most difficult of days, we can look and see God's faithfulness to us! We can remind ourselves of His past faithfulness, and see His present faithfulness reflected in our continued lives of intimacy with Him.
I am not sure about you, but I am no 10 stringed lyre player, but I can play guitar. There have been days where that is exactly what I do, I get up, grab my guitar and worship the Lord. If no instrument is available or one is unmusical, just listening to worship music and allowing our heart to join in can lift our eyes and hearts to Him. Allowing our hearts to sing of His Praises reminds us of all that He has accomplished. I find that I might start with one particular thing the Lord has done for me, and end up with a long list, as each reminds me of another.
Going back to the scriptures quoted above, I wanted to take a few moments and reflect on verses 12-15. I once heard a pastor say that anytime we read about the righteous in the Old Testament, we can apply that directly to ourselves, as we are now righteous in Christ. Paul wrote about this application of Christ's righteousness to us in several scriptures, and here is one example - Romans 4:23-24 NIV: "The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, [24] but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness---for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." We are righteous because of Jesus.
Going back to the verses, the Psalmist says the righteous (us) will flourish like a Palm tree, or like the cedar in Lebanon. Being from Missouri and Minnesota its hard to relate to this image. I will say that I know palm trees grow well in the heat, in sand, in arid places, near water. They were indications in the desert of water, and were used to provide shelter, food and even roofs, for homes. I believe the Cedars of Lebanon were often found on the mountain tops, and are clearly an evergreen. I understand that there were of immense size, and sent our long branches and were used to build the temple. Now days a good cedar chest or closet is know to protect clothing from moths and other vermin, due to its aromatic wood. So we have here a picture of two types of trees, one that lives in the heights and one that lives in arid places, both provide shelter, and are visible from a long way off, and are signs of life!
Moving on, the righteous (us) are planted in the very house, even the very courts of God, and flourish there! Again, we know from our New Testament, that we are actually seated in heavenly places in our unity with Jesus. Oh, what a glorious spiritual reality this is. We don't have to wait for an open heaven, or for a specific day or event, we live there, we are planted in God's house, in His Courts, seated with Him! Paul writes - Ephesians 2:6 NIV: "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus."
Thirdly, we will continue to bear fruit, even into our old age. I guess we could say, there is no retirement in the Kingdom. The key building blocks of the Kingdom are relationships, and we don't just stop being in relationships at some age. We are always called to represent Christ, to bear fruit in our lives! Our lives are meant to proclaim the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord, not that there won't be hard times, dry times, times of difficulty, but that in all of these that God is faithful and good, always loving and merciful. Again, as our age increases, our witness to His faithfulness becomes stronger and stronger.
Thank You Lord for Your amazing love, the blessed assurance we have in You! Lets us praise You and worship Your Name all our days!
Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment