Reflecting on Praise in the Psalms

To praise is an act of worship wherein we honor another, specifically God, because of who He is and what He does.  “Our praise toward God is the means by which we express our joy to the Lord.  We are to praise God both for who He is and for what He does (Ps. 150:2).  Praising God for who He is is called adoration; praising Him for what He does is known as thanksgiving” (Nelson’s).  Praising God is an act of celebration that expresses our joy and recognizes God and all He has done.

"Praise" comes from a similar root as the word "precious" – both indicating that something has value.  If something is valuable, it typically has a cost; there is a price to pay for it.  If it has merit, esteem, or value, we find it precious.  We worship it.  We praise it.

This language of price, cost, value, payment is seen many times over in the Bible.  It relates, in fact, to our very salvation.  To redeem something is to “gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment” (“Redeem”).  Atonement, reparation, and restitution all hold the idea of making up for a wrong typically through a form of payment.  

“So she [Eve] took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband [Adam], who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6b).

“If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

We have done wrong.  Not one of us is free from the guilt of a broken, sinful life.

“For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a).  

The wages – the price of sin – is death, separation from God and eternity with Him.  

There is a price on forgiveness and salvation, for it is a priceless, precious treasure to have eternal life and union with God.

“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have appointed it to you to make atonement on the altar for your lives, since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement” (Leviticus 17:11).

“According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).

What is the price of forgiveness for our sins?  Blood.  Life for a life.  We are already sentenced to death by virtue of our sin.  We cannot save ourselves.  We cannot purify ourselves.  We cannot make ourselves precious.  So what do we do?

We praise God because "God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).

Christ took the payment we owed for our sin and paid our debt in full.  God Incarnate, God as Man, took on the full weight of our sin-debt and paid the price for us.  God says we are precious in his sight (Isaiah 43:4).  He gives us value, merit, esteem when we had none.  The price for your life and mine was the very lifeblood of Jesus Christ.

“For you are saved by grace through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

“…the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).

God regained our lives and gifted them back to us.  How can we not praise Him?

This series is called "Reflecting on the Psalms," and I have definitely not written about the Psalms in this post yet.  We can praise God for His glory, as we saw in the first post of this series.  We can praise God for any number of characteristics and actions that reveal who He is and what He does, as we saw in the second post.  We can praise God for being with us in our suffering, as the third post proclaimed.   

Now, in this final post of the series, I invite you to praise God because He is God, and He loves you.  He loved you so much; He died for you.  The psalmists knew of God's promises.  They witnessed His faithfulness and His love throughout the long centuries of Israel's history, but they hadn't yet met Jesus.  We have.  Join me in praising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, using the psalmist’s own words –a writer who could not even fathom all that God had yet to do.

Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord!
Serve the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we are his[a]—
his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever;
his faithfulness, through all generations.

~Psalm 100

Further Reading

If you would like to read more praise Psalms, I suggest the following.

Psalm 18- Praise for Deliverance

Psalm 33- Praise to the Creator

Psalm 98- Praise the King

Psalm 100- Be Thankful

Psalm 107- Thanksgiving for God’s Deliverance

Psalm 116- Thanks to God for Deliverance

Psalm 148- Creation’s Praise of the Lord

Resources

“Redeem,” Google Dictionary, Accessed 17 October 2020, www.google.com.

Ronald F. Youngblood, ed., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995.