Year 5, Day 166: Psalm 7-9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

Each of these three psalms speak well to the character of God and why He deserves our praise and worship.  Let’s look at them individually as I’ve done in the past.

In Psalm 7 we are reminded of God’s ability to protect us and save us from our enemies.  We are reminded of how He is roused up against injustice.  We are reminded that He is the ultimate judge of the world – regardless of how much we might actually like to forget about Him.  In the end, we are ultimately faced with a choice.  We can either see His greatness and give Him praise because of it or we can bury our head in the sand and expect judgment in the end.

In Psalm 8 we have a much happier approach to God as our Up.  Rather than focusing on His incredible power to judge over us, we hear about God’s incredible creative prowess.  He put the stars in the sky.  He set the world up around us.  He gave us dominion.  When we didn’t deserve it in the least, God came and set us above the whole of the rest of creation.  Why would we not love a God who does that for us?

In Psalm 9 we get a more personal relationship testimony.  Yes, God judges over the nations.  Yes, He sits over the world.  But He is the stronghold of the oppressed.  He is the one in whom we can put our trust when we are at the end of our rope.  This is a really neat point.  Traditionally, it was assumed that the gods loved the wealthy, rich, and famous because such people obviously had their blessing.  But God is God of the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the social underdogs.  If that isn’t a reason to praise Him, I don’t know what is!

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