Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! 2 Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; talk of all His wondrous works! 3 Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord. 4 Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore! 5 Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth.
Psalm 105:1-5
We live in interesting times. The normal attacks and trials of keeping a “God before us” life seem to have stepped up. Lately I’ve found myself doing what the psalmist does here—recounting the faithfulness of God and reminding myself of the times when I couldn’t see how things could work out, but they did! I’ve remembered when my eyes were blind to the “all things working together for good” aspect of keeping God before me, yet in 20/20 hindsight, recognizing that they did work out!
There isn’t one time in my life where God has ever failed me. The blood of Jesus is far greater than my sin. And though I don’t live in the past, it’s good sometimes to recall the depth of His forgiveness in my life, making even more real the knowledge that my sin is “as far as the east is from the west” removed because God’s mercies are as high as the heavens are above the earth. Think about that!
What the psalmist is doing on a national level in these verses is to consider God’s faithful track record over the course of Israel’s history of both faithfulness and faithlessness, yet never once did God abandon who He was or His promises to them because of their actions. God will never deny Himself. As we look through that lens, so to speak, let’s see what He is saying: “Give thanks. Call upon; make known, sing, talk, glory, rejoice!” What is all of this? The writer of Hebrews knew: “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name” (13:15).
The psalmist is calling on the people to offer the fruit of their lips through the sacrifice of praise, which is described for us here as all of those commands listed above. This translates into the first magnificently simplistic but ever-so-important truth: If we put God first, there will always be something good to talk about.
Think about it. If we’re continually giving thanks, calling upon Him, singing, talking about Him, etc., we’ll never have to say, “Remember that time when God let me down? When He didn’t keep His word?”
If we put ourselves before God, then we won’t be praising the Lord but reviewing our list of failures and miseries. Is that what you want the fruit of your lips to be? There’s a time to share our concerns with someone and ask for prayer, but I think you get the point. We can’t say that there’s nothing good to talk about, because we can always talk about God! Look at the similarity between the verses of this Old Testament psalm and Paul’s words in Philippians 4:8-9: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true . . . noble . . . just . . . pure . . . lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. . . . [A]nd the God of peace will be with you.”
There is never a time when we can’t seek the Lord, His strength, His face, remember His marvelous works, wonders, and judgments. The result? Thanksgiving, singing, rejoicing, and all of the other reactions that we should have when we consider our Lord! All the good things that God has done in our lives can never be numbered because they’re infinite. That’s what the “God before us” life should be like—an endless string of good things to talk about because God is good when nothing else is. If we keep “God before us” as our outlook, we will never run out of good things to say!
Excerpt from “Beside Still Waters” now available on Amazon.
