As we come into this season—from Thanksgiving (in America) to Christmas and New Year—we are meant to be filled with, well, thanksgiving and joy and all good things nice and sweet. Sometimes, some of us do feel like that. But often, when we are honest, we don’t. The turkey is burnt. The kids won’t sleep. The electric bill is huge. The work is a pain in the proverbial. On and on it goes—endless “stuff” with no relief. And we’re meant to feel happy, too?! Pull the other one, and it’s got reindeer bells on it!
How, then, can we experience the sweeter side of Christian virtues in the midst of the business of the season of peace and goodwill—and frantic shopping, overblown expectations, and underwhelming reality? Here are some thoughts from Psalm 65 on why praise is due to God.
1. He Hears Prayer
We tend to talk about ‘sending thoughts and prayers’ to someone when they go through a hard time. Which shows we haven’t really grasped what prayer is. Prayer is not a nice, wishful feeling that we communicate with someone else. Prayer is talking to God. And the remarkable thing is that God hears our prayers. As Psalm 65 verse 2 puts it,
“O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.”
This is one great reason why “Praise is due to you, O God” (Psalm 65 verse 1): our God hears our prayers.
2. He Atones for Our Transgressions
This surely is the reason for all the reasons to give praise to God! As Psalm 65 verse 3 puts it,
“You atone for our transgressions.”
The story of the Bible culminates at the cross, where the atoning work of God in Christ covers over and pays for our sins; he receives our sins, and we receive his righteousness. Well, whatever else is going on (however annoying, aggravating, downright knucklehead it might be), this is a reason par excellence to give praise to God. Our sins are gone! He has taken them! We are free!
3. He Dwells Among His People
These days, we think of spirituality in individualistic terms too often. We look at the church and think of it as a “religious institution,” not a “body of Christ.” That is, we don’t tend to think of the church in organic or body terms. We think of the church in terms of religious institutions. Obviously, any time you have more than a few people getting together, you need some sort of organizational framework. But the church, in its essence, is not just an organizational framework, in the same way that a human body is not just a skeleton of bones and sinews. For the body to function, it needs that skeletal structure, but the church is far more than committees, elders, pastors, deacons, budgets, and all the rest. It is a place where Christ dwells; the church is the body of Christ, and the church is the bride of Christ. Well, here again is a great reason to give praise to God. When we go to church, we meet not just with other Christians (true, but less than exciting), but we also meet with God (mind-blowingly nearly unbelievably astonishing).
4. He Does Awesome Deeds
We often think of God as an idea or a philosophy. People even talk about their philosophy of ministry, evangelism, or discipleship. They talk about their worldview. Obviously, we do need to have an approach that we take to such things (or a philosophy, you could say, I suppose). And we all, whether we know it or not, have a worldview or a way of looking/viewing the world. But this way of speaking of God and religion tends to make it all feel like it's merely a religious version of, well, philosophy and ethics. But no, how wrong that is! Our God is a God who does things.
“By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation.” - Psalm 65:5
God steps in, acts, works out salvation and answers our prayers with awesome deeds of righteousness. What a great reason to praise God! He has not left us alone. He intervenes. He acts—and awesomely.
5. He Crowns the Year with Bounty
With all the talk about the environment, rising sea levels, the weather, climate change, and all that—without getting sidetracked into the controversy about all of that—it’s easy to look at the natural world around us as sparse and lacking and come at it all with a scarcity mentality. Of course, there are people in our world who have less than others, and Christians are to love their neighbors with enough mercy and justice so that those who have less are helped and enabled to provide for themselves. But the big picture, the ‘by and large truth,’ is that the world is a bounteous place with massive riches and resources if man did not squander it. As Psalm 65 verse 9 puts it,
“You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.”
Or again, in verse 11,
“You crown the year with bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.”
Here then, is a seasonal reason to give thanks and praise God: the regular rotation of sowing and harvest, the food we eat (which so often those of us who are not farmers rarely give any thought to the wonder that is the food that we eat), the more than enough that many people seasonally consume, the “bounty” – all that is to lift our eyes, lift our hearts, lift our voices, in praise to the God to whom praise is due!
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/jchizhe
