Page 28 - Psalms Ebook

Reading PSALMS to know God

Chapter 3 Word Pictures

Psalms is a book of joy, music, rejoicing and singing. Through our
devotional approach to this tremendous book, I believe God wants to
write a new song in our heart. And I pray, for myself and for all of us,
that as we go through this wonderful book of God’s songs we will end up
being singing Christians. In our hymnals we are used to singing positive
songs. Hymns of praise and thanksgiving and worship. But the psalms
can be negative as well. I noticed nobody mentions Psalm 88 as their
favorite psalm. That’s because Psalm 88 is dark and gloomy. The house
of Israel learned to sing even when they were down and discouraged. So
God wants to teach us to sing all the time.

Let me just get the key verse before your heart again. In fact, I am going
to add a couple of other key verses. There are so many clincher passages
that could summarize Psalms. I have chosen Psalm 25:15 as one of the
key verses. Psalm 25:15 says, “My eyes are continually (when the sun
shines, when the rains falls, when I am up and when I am down) toward
the LORD, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.” Later we will look
at the verse that says, “Without changes, they fear not God.” The Lord
mixes up our circumstances so we learn to trust Him.

Psalm 149:1, “Praise the Lord! Sing unto the Lord a new song.”

Every time I turn my eyes to the Lord, He puts a new song in my heart.
Every time you turn your eyes to the Lord, He puts a new song in your
heart. In addition to that key verse, let me suggest a couple of other key
verses. Psalm 34:1 summarizes our theme,

“I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in
my mouth.” Isn’t that a great thing? “I will bless the LORD at all
times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

Another one is Psalm 103:1 “Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that
is within me, bless His holy name.” I personally think this is the most
complete single verse illustration of total surrender in the entire Bible.
The reason I like that one is because it shows us that praise is not only
extensive, it is intensive. In other words, I not only praise God for what
happens out here, but with every fiber of my being inside. “Let all that
is within me, bless His holy name.” So put those two thoughts together.