Psalms Reading – 4.3.2022
Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
This psalm is an exuberant joy-filled call to give thanks and praise. It has two sections which each gives the call and then the reason for doing so.
Such praise must be powerful for we are worshiping the one true Lord. So we shout, worship with gladness, and sing joyful songs. This is no mundane worship service. It is wholehearted with all the energy we have.
The reason we joyfully worship is because we know God has created us as His people. Through Jesus, we are the Body of Christ. We belong to Him. We personally know and experience Him as sheep know their shepherd.
The words “His people” translates a Hebrew word that structurally is at the very center of the psalm. Everything preceding this leads up to this affirmation of God’s relationship with His people, and everything following it springs from it. This exercise of locating a poem’s main point at its center—whether it be a word, a phrase, or an entire verse—occurs many times in the Psalms.
So, as the worshipers gather at the temple, they enter with joyful praise. The reason we can always come with such rich gratitude, regardless of our circumstances, is because the Lord is good, loving, and faithful. These qualities never stop and will never end. We can count on God being the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Let us go and meet with the Body of Christ and enter worship with a joyful song in our hearts and on our lips.
Memory Verse: Psalm 95:6-7, Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Question(s) to Consider: What joyful song of praise and thanksgiving are you taking into worship today? How are you celebrating God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness?