They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. (Psalms 145:7, NIV)

When a young golfer stands alone on a shadow-crossed practice green and hits those putts—the ones to “win” the Masters or the US Open—it’s an imagination complete with sound effects. The crowd roars, the echoes of their din resounding through the trees and bouncing between grandstands. This is the surround sound of youthful dreams, and it completes the feeling of bliss.

Perhaps we have all imagined such noisy accolades raining down on our heads—if not for golf, then for other accomplishments. But it’s rare to experience this sensation for real. Only a few reach that level of accomplishment.

If we did the math, we would find that if we filled every stadium in the world and gave all these crowds something to cheer for unrestrained, we would not reach the volume (in both senses of the word) of the praises that have been sung through the centuries for the God of our salvation.

This God, the one the Hebrews called YHWH and we render as LORD in our many English translations, carries too many traits of wonder for us to list them all. But this did not keep David from offering much evidence in Psalm 145:

“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” (vv. 8-9)

“The LORD is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.” (vv. 13-14)

“The LORD is near to all who call on him… He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.” (vv. 18-19)

This God deserves every word of our worship—whispered, spoken, preached or sung. And yet we easily forget him. We turn the key to the ignition of our day and we progress through the miles of meetings and duties, never reading the road signs that draw us to places of rest, where we can think long enough to pray and meditate and praise him.

Let me put this plainly, and I hope that I am communicating this with a pastor’s heart: If your worship is limited to 20 minutes of singing on Sunday morning each week, the God you are praising is not nearly big enough. He is not David’s God, abundantly good and unfailingly righteous, whose “greatness no one can fathom” and who demonstrates power in his “awesome works.”

If this is true, consider yourself encouraged to lay hold of David’s God. Lay hold of him, learn of him, and sing joyfully of him in all his glory.

—

Jeff Hopper
March 24, 2015
Copyright 2015 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.