Seeing Jesus in the Psalms

  Psalm 105 God assures us He will keep his promise to make us fruitful. That promise is made to many different people throughout the Bible in different ways. God uses both blessings and testing to keep his promise. And the reason why God uses blessings and testings to keep His promise is so we will obey and praise Him. Knowing that may help you answer why you have been blessed or tested. MAIN POINT: We are encouraged to praise because God uses wonderful deeds (blessings and testings) to keep His promise so we will obey and praise Him Although I have spoken little about the structure of the Psalms as a whole, it is often commented about by scholars and preachers that Psalms is a highly structured and intricate book containing five books, and each one of those made up of introductions and endings. So it should be of no surprise to us that we see a relationship in Psalm 105 to the preceding Psalm 104. Since Psalms has just established that God is creator of and He gives breath and su...

  Psalm 98 Main Point: We can celebrate like we won the lotto when we know that Jesus remembers His promise and we have put our trust in that promise. I was at a concert of a Christian ska band back in the 90s, and as a youth pastor, I was invited to pray with the band before the concert. One of the band members shared the following verse with me: “For God is not unjust.  He will not forget how hard you have worked for him  and how you have shown your love to him  by caring for other believers, as you still do.” Hebrews 6:10 NLT I was deeply moved by this verse and by the young performer who ministered grace to me by sharing it. To this day I feel like it has the power of a magic spell. I know I used a bad metaphor but really it is hard to express the power of these words. You could call it a medicine. The truth is profound, deep, reassuring, comforting and moves me to tears even now as I type this. Although Psalm 98:3 has several different translations of what it is...

  Psalm 54 The background to this Psalm is found in 1 Samuel 23:19-20 .  David’s life is filled with problems from his childhood through to his death. Can you recount the challenges that David faced in his life? David saw great triumphs, but these did not lead to the peace, prosperity, relative ease and rest that you might imagine. David had those moments in his life, but more often than not, we read of enemies attacking him: from wild animals, to brothers, to mighty warriors, to the king, to foreign armies, to his own sons and on it goes. According to the notes above Psalm 54 and 63, we read David’s prayer to God. And according to the more historical book of first and second Samuel, we read of the events leading up to the prayers and the events following the prayers. David was delivered in a fashion. He still was a fugitive, he still was not yet recognised as King, Saul and the Ziphites were still living and not conquered or destroyed. David escaped, and you could see that i...

  Psalm 47 I am feasting on God’s Word. And each dish can only hint at what is coming next. Since the feast is far more extensive than anything I am used to and is far more wide ranging than the best of Chinese buffets I’ve ever enjoyed, I'm constantly surprised at what comes next. Or to use another analogy, God’s Word is like a symphony but instead of only four movements, we are treated to practically innumerable movements and variations on the theme. We may focus on a phrase or verse that we enjoy and savour it each time we go to the Word of God but in fact we, given our preferences and finiteness, may be missing larger and more complex delicacies to delight in.  For the Lord Most High is awesome . He is the great King of all the earth . In Psalm 47 verse 2 God is King of all the earth. In verse 4 the text zooms into the Promised Land and the descendants of Jacob. God has not limited himself to the small nation of Israel or their rather insignificant tract of land sandwiched...