I Will Exalt You, My God and King A Psalm of praise. Of David.
(This is an acrostic psalm with each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.)
“I will exalt You, my God and King; 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; His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts, the glorious splendor of Your majesty. And I will meditate on Your wondrous works. They will proclaim the power of Your awesome deeds, and I will declare Your greatness. They will extol the fame of Your abundant goodness and sing joyfully of Your righteousness.
The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion. The LORD is good to all; His compassion rests on all He has made. All You have made will give You thanks, O LORD, and Your saints will bless You. They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your might, to make known to men Your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful in all His words and kind in all His actions. The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy. My mouth will declare the praise of the LORD; let every creature bless His holy name forever and ever.”
“I will exalt You, my God and King; 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; His greatness is unsearchable.”
Why praise the Lord? Does God really NEED our praise? The One who spoke the universe into being with a single word? Nope! Not really. So, if God doesn’t need our praise, why is praise such a necessary part of a vibrant positive life?
We are the ones who need to praise God. When we praise God, we shift our focus from problems we might not be able to handle to a God who can handle anything. When we praise God, we remind ourselves of who God is and how great He is. When we praise God, we are expressing gratitude for all God’s magnificent works. The more we praise God, the more our hearts and minds and bodies are transformed in a positive direction.
“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.” Face it, we all lose our tempers occasionally and we aren’t very gracious or compassionate. We may have hair trigger tempers that will go off without notice and our devotion might only be a few millimeters thick. But God is everything good and gracious that we-and our friends-are not.
“The LORD is faithful in all His words and kind in all His actions. The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” There are times when many of us accuse God of being vicious and retaliatory-parents afflicted with cancer or dementia, children with cancer or severely injured in accidents, terrorist attacks on innocent people, etc. But we are living in a fallen sinful world and bad things happen. Sin has never been God’s plan for anybody’s life; however, sin is a fact. But God’s goodness and faithfulness is also a fact.
“The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy. My mouth will declare the praise of the LORD; let every creature bless His holy name forever and ever.” Notice something? These verses tell us that God is righteous in ALL His ways and kind in ALL His deeds and that God is near to ALL who call out to Him in truth. What these verses do NOT say is that God is righteous and kind and near to those who are perfect or incredibly faithful or who have earned high marks spiritually. If God’s righteousness and faithfulness and kindness depended on our being righteous and faithful and kind, we would all be toast! Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.” The only requirement for God to answer us when we call is for us to call out IN TRUTH.
APPLICATION: I once heard the testimony of a guy who had been a member of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang on the West Coast of America. This man had a praying widowed mother 3,000 miles away back in South Carolina who kept storming the gates of heaven, begging God to deliver her son from the horrible mess he had made of his life. Finally, one day, God got hold of this man and he cried out to God and then called his mother from a pay phone booth. (This is America in the 1970’s, folks. No cell phones.) The gang was coming after him; however, as long as he was locked in the pay phone booth, he was safe. His mother told him to look at the phone book and find the nearest Assemblies of God church and call the pastor. When the man called, the pastor who came was a big muscular guy who looked like he could easily whip any gang member. The pastor rescued the man, took him home, fed him, gave him a bed, and heard his confession as the man turned his life over to Christ. Two years after hearing this testimony in a church in Charleston, WV, I met the man’s mother in another church in Charleston, SC, and she confirmed all these details.
Why tell this story? This man had made a complete mess of his life-drinking, drugs, managing a prostitution ring-you name it. The ONLY thing this man did right was to call on God in truth. But that was the key. Standing there in that phone booth, wondering if the pastor would arrive before the gang members tore the phone booth apart piece by piece, this man cried out to God and God answered spectacularly.
The title of this Bible study is “GOD DOESN’T NEED OUR PRAISE-WE DO!” If we don’t remind ourselves of God’s nature, we will never call on Him. God doesn’t demand we clean ourselves up before we call on Him; God only requires us to call, and then He does a far better clean-up job than we possibly can do.
The great thing about the psalms is that we don’t have to think up words of praise; David has already shared some great things with us. Remember that you don’t have to FEEL like praising; you only have to do it. If you will begin reading psalms out loud, you will find burdens lifting and your mind becoming clearer.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to praise You, even when we don’t have words. Thank You for hearing our prayers and for answering all who call You in truth, even when our lives are a mess. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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