“I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.”
The greatness of God is something so big, that it cannot be comprehended at once. It is a subject that can always be reflected on more. Unfortunately, the cares of life often get in the way and obscure our view of the greatness of our God. One of the best ways to focus on God is to talk to Him about Himself. This is often called praise. The psalmist makes a point that he will praise God “every day.” Praising God should be an integral part of a Christian’s life, and every day there are new things to praise Him for. In these verses David says that he will praise God not only every day, but forever and ever. This is not just a ‘literary device’ since indeed if our eternity is secure with Christ then it will be spent in ceaseless praise of God.
“His greatness no one can fathom.” The more we understand the two ways God has revealed Himself to us—His word, the Bible and the world which He made—the more in awe we will stand and the more we will realize how little we know of either one. What little we see of God should make us want to extol (NIV ‘exalt’) Him. The word involves a lifting up, or a raising in height. Do we raise God to His proper height in our thinking? To lift God up, all we have to do is bow down.
One of the biggest responsibilities of a father is to pass on what he has learned of and from God to his children. Often each generation retains only the least important traits of the previous generation and loses the big picture. This is not God’s plan for families. We should always be talking about God’s works to one another, whether about what He has done in the past, or what He is doing for us now, or about what He has promised to do in the future. If we keep God’s “mighty acts” willfully before our consciousness, then we will be more spiritually alive, and we will be able to praise God a little better every new day.
Alex Damon
10/16/2006
Psalm 145:1–4
“I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.”
The greatness of God is something so big, that it cannot be comprehended at once. It is a subject that can always be reflected on more. Unfortunately, the cares of life often get in the way and obscure our view of the greatness of our God. One of the best ways to focus on God is to talk to Him about Himself. This is often called praise. The psalmist makes a point that he will praise God “every day.” Praising God should be an integral part of a Christian’s life, and every day there are new things to praise Him for. In these verses David says that he will praise God not only every day, but forever and ever. This is not just a ‘literary device’ since indeed if our eternity is secure with Christ then it will be spent in ceaseless praise of God.
“His greatness no one can fathom.” The more we understand the two ways God has revealed Himself to us—His word, the Bible and the world which He made—the more in awe we will stand and the more we will realize how little we know of either one. What little we see of God should make us want to extol (NIV ‘exalt’) Him. The word involves a lifting up, or a raising in height. Do we raise God to His proper height in our thinking? To lift God up, all we have to do is bow down.
One of the biggest responsibilities of a father is to pass on what he has learned of and from God to his children. Often each generation retains only the least important traits of the previous generation and loses the big picture. This is not God’s plan for families. We should always be talking about God’s works to one another, whether about what He has done in the past, or what He is doing for us now, or about what He has promised to do in the future. If we keep God’s “mighty acts” willfully before our consciousness, then we will be more spiritually alive, and we will be able to praise God a little better every new day.