Daily Meditations

  After a wonderful pilgrimage through the Psalms of the Bible, it became a dilemma to try to work out where to go next in our musings. I pondered Ephesians, since that is a wonderful, heavenly explanation of who we are and all that the Lord has done for us, it also covers the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and the nature of the spiritual war that we are involved in. However, it is impossible to take a verse from Ephesians and writer a bite-size commentary on what it means! Then it became clear, it has to be Hebrews. No Scriptures are more quoted in the Book of Hebrews than the Psalms, in fact the writer composes much of his letter as a series of arguments from the Psalms showing us how Jesus came to fulfil so much of what is written by the ancient songwriters. The Book of Hebrews was written for Jewish believers in Christ, and it sets out to confirm that He fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures particularly as High Priest.  The author of Hebrews remains anonymous alt...

Psalm 150:6 Praise the Lord! In terms of our journey through the Psalms, this is a sad moment indeed. The last verse of the last Psalm is before us. It has been such a rich and fulfilling expedition that I am tempted to go back and start all over again! The Lord has led us through green pastures beside still waters, He has also carried us through the valley of the shadow of death and bid us dine with Him at His banqueting table. Personally, I have faced death on three separate occasions whilst being on this journey and yet, here I am, living and breathing and still praising the Lord! It’s time to move to pastures new and I invite you to come with me. However, before we leave, there’s one more anthem to sing, one more special offering to bring before the altar of our God. If we are living, breathing creatures, then we are called to “Praise the Lord.” That is partly what our lungs and our tongues are for, to take deep breaths and then utter exclamations of glory and honour to the incredi...

Psalm 150:3-5 Praise Him! Although it means we end the Psalm rather more abruptly than we hoped, it would be a bit of a task to write daily thoughts about the next 3 verses! They are basically saying one thing, “ Let the whole of the orchestra praise the Lord! ” So, eight instruments are mentioned embracing wind, strings and percussion, and right slap-bang in the middle, is dancing! Praise music across the world has moved on from days of just church organs or pianos, which were mighty instruments of worship indeed. Modern congregations like to hear guitars and drums and keyboards and possibly a wind or brass instrument too! If we do not have the musicians, then we can watch and participate with online celebrations and we thank God for that! The one thing that has changed, that was unthinkable in my youth, is that dancing, movement and banner-waving are all legitimate and acceptable expressions of worship today.  The other point that we should remember, even though we are near the e...

Psalm 150:2 God's acts of power and His surpassing greatness Verse 1 of this Psalm tells us where the Lord our God is to be praised, now we read the reasons why He is to be praised. Two prominent reasons are given; firstly, we must praise Him for His acts of power and secondly, for His surpassing greatness.  God’s acts of power are revealed primarily in creation, for the Word teaches that all of this amazing, glorious universe that He has made came about simply by Him speaking or commanding! There were no intricate factory workshops, God did not need zillions of tons of raw materials to convert, He was not assisted by computer technology or by AI! He just spoke and such is the authority and power in His Being, that all things came about and obeyed His voice. I find this incredibly hard to taken on board, don’t you? If this is a true reflection of who God is, then who or what are we? Nothing by comparison! God’s acts of power are not just confined to creation for He has revealed His...

Psalm 150:1 Praise the Lord! Oh dear! Oh dear! This is the last Psalm in the psalter and It feels as if we are preparing to say “Goodbye” to a dear friend. I first started the process of studying the Psalms, verse by verse,  in May 2019 and it’s taken me nearly 6 years! I feel so privileged and so blessed. These studies have made an enormous impact on my spiritual walk with the Lord, and it has been an absolute joy to share these thoughts with others. Psalm 150 is sometimes called “The final Great Hallelujah!” There are those who think it was composed specifically to bring an appropriate end to the collection of songs and thus it embraces the whole universe and every form of praise. Let’s dive in and enjoy these final moments of uninhibited worship of the Lord God.    V1        Where is it that the Lord should be praised? Firstly, in His sanctuary. For Jewish readers and singers this meant, of course, Jerusalem and the Temple t...

Psalm 149:9 The Lord will carry out the sentences that are written Let’s remember that this powerful statement begins in verse 5 where the Lord’s faithful people rejoice because of the delight that He has in them. These faithful ones are encouraged to rejoice in this honour, to sing at bedtime and to never stop praising their God. His Word is their weapon against wickedness, and the Lord intends to bring justice and vengeance against the nations and the peoples and all those arrogant rulers who defy Him. Verse 9 now goes on to describe a heavenly charter or register of God’s decisions. This book has no name, although we read in Revelation of the Lamb’s Book of Life and that faithful believers’ names are recorded there. At the time of God’s final judgement of the wicked we read that books are opened –  “ And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what th...