This is a very short psalm, but one that many people love. It is a psalm calling us to bring praise and thanksgiving to God. Right from the very first verse the psalmist is calling for us to praise our Lord. We don’t have to be great musicians to sing praises to God. Here God says to just give Him a joyful shout (vs. 1). Everyone and everything should join in the praise - all the land, both every person, and the actual land itself.
If someone truly and deeply loves another person, serving that person is a joy, not a chore. Your desire is to make the person you love happy. As a born-again child of God, I love Him. He purchased my salvation with His Blood, and I will serve Him with gladness (vs. 2). When we look at what God has done for us, our service should not be done begrudgingly or with grumbling. He wants us to come to Him with a song in our hearts and on our lips. When the stresses of the day start to mount up, listening to Christian hymns and worship songs, and singing along when I can, always brings me closer to the Lord. It brings me into His presence.
God created us. We didn’t “just happen” (vs. 3). We didn’t create ourselves. Since we were created by God and not man, who should have the authority in our life? Naturally God should. Yet so often we try to run things ourselves. God knows us, as we are His people, His sheep. We can trust God to know what is best for us, and let Him lead our life. As God’s sheep we belong to His pasture. Are we sheep looking longingly into the pastures of the world or of the enemy of our soul, the devil? Those pastures may look pleasant, but in reality, once we wander into them, they are filled with poisonous plants, venomous snakes, plus holes and ravines to fall into. Stay out of those pastures! Stay in the pastures of the Lord God. His fields are full of good, wholesome grass. Our Good Shepherd is there to protect us from our enemy and any dangers.
Our Savior God calls us to draw near to Him (vs. 4). In previous years, when kings and queens actually ruled, to be invited into the courts of a king was a great honor, and one didn’t just come strolling in without displaying proper conduct. Yahweh is mightier than any earthly king, and though He is also our loving Father and Savior, He still deserves the proper awe and respect due to the greatest of Kings. The psalmist tells us that we are to enter into His gates with thanksgiving. As we prepare to approach God, are we thankful to Him for all of His many blessings, or are we just coming to Him with our requests and complaints?
As we come into the courts of the heavenly palace of the Lord God, we are to do so with praise. There are so many things in each of our lives that we can praise God for. He is a faithful and trustworthy God. As mentioned in the previous verse, we are His sheep, and thus He is a good and loving Shepherd to us. When we worship Him with our praises, it helps us trust more and strengthens our faith. Do we willingly and joyfully come into God’s presence to worship, or are we going through the motions and “playing church”?
Satan would have us believe that God is angry with and distant from mankind. That is not true. Verse 5 tells us that He is a good and merciful God. When we think of someone who is good, we think of that person as being a virtuous person, that they are righteous. We think that they have strong morals and that they are a person of integrity. God is all of that, and even more so. All of this is the basis of His character, and He cannot be otherwise. Being a loving God is part of His Being. All of these virtues is what He is. Jesus, when talking to His disciples, emphasised that if a human father would treat his children with love, our heavenly Father does even much more so (Luke 11:5-13). Our psalmist closes off this psalm with saying what a good, merciful, and truthful or faithful God we have.
God’s gates and the courts of His throne room are always open for His blood-bought children. Let us enter them with thanksgiving and praise.
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