Please read Psalm 108 (13 verses) This Psalm is parts of Psalm 57 and Psalm 60.

The inner life of the Psalmist is at peace and rest and is steadfast in the Lord His God. Happiness abounds in his psyche and he sings and makes sweet music to his Lord. He praises the Lord among the crowds of people for the love of the Lord abounds everywhere. The writer can see it written in every circumstance and is rejoicing in all expressions of joy. The love of God reaches higher than the heavens and His faithfulness, similarly, reaches to the skies.

The psalmist calls on God to deliver His people, for all the nations and communities of this world belong to Him and God is in complete control of them. God has spoken from the holy sanctuary and says that He alone will measure out the lands that belong to Him and decide who lives there and what they will do. Every tribe of Judah and Israel is His, along with the countries of the Gentile nations. God gives a double portion to Ephraim and gives the promise of faithfulness to Judah. The enemies of the Lord are defeated, Philistia and the comfort of Gilead belongs to God.

The writer asks who will lead the people of God to the place of refuge and plenty, the city of God? Who will find Edom, a place of contempt, where Esau was doomed to wander?

He knows the Lord will be faithful even when His people are not. They have wandered away and served other gods but the Lord will restore them and not leave them in penury and trouble. The enemies within the sinful human nature will be trampled down, for the Lord is able to rescue His people. Only He can give the victory over self and sin.

Please read Psalm 107 (43 verses)

We all have life stories in which we can be thankful to the Lord for His tender mercies to us. The love of the Lord endures forever. The psalmist in this Psalm rehearses some story types that we can identify with to draw our souls out in praise to the Lord. The redeemed of the Lord say their stories from every part of the globe. They testify to the grace and goodness of the Lord, wandering in deserts without home or refuge. Yet the Lord was their refuge and provided for them. Every time they cried out in their need the Lord provided for them, food and drink and all spiritual needs. Their lives ebbed away but they were delivered from their distresses. The Lord brought them to a city where they could settle, as He had promised them.

Some were in prison, subjected to chains and hard labour, because of their rebellion against the commandment of the Lord. They sat in darkness with no one to help but the Lord came to them, broke their chains and set them free. The unfailing love of God breaks iron gates open and the fetters of bronze.

Some suffered afflictions for their sins and drew near the gates of death. The Lord rescued them from the grave and restored their life. The Lord healed them and we give shouts of joy to Him.

Some were on the sea, thrown about by storms and high seas, staggering like drunken men, but the Lord is able to still those storms and save the people from fear and death. The parched land is made fertile by the mercy of the Lord, to feed His people and meet their needs. Such is the mercy of our God! He does not treat us as we deserve. The upright rejoice at His works and we ponder them to understand His majesty.

Please read Psalm 106 (48 verses)

We give thanks to the Lord because His love endures forever. The Lord is good and blessed is the person who does what is right and acts justly. We have joy when we remember what the Lord has done for His people.

They had grieved Him terribly by refusing to remember the miracles in Egypt and the deliverance from their foes in the Red Sea. God saved them in the desert and drowned all their foes, releasing them from tyranny. But they forgot what God had done and complained and tested God in the wilderness, craving food and drink and never really seeing the goodness of the Lord. They wanted more and more, though God protected them and provided everything they needed.

They made a calf to worship and grieved the Lord by leaving His Holy commandments and following their own foolish way and the religion of the false people around them. They were unfaithful and ungrateful and despised the promise of the coming land of plenty. Moses had to stand between them and the wrath of God and temper the effects of God’s anger against His people.

God promised they would all fall in the wilderness and their daughters and sons would inherit the land. But they also disobeyed the Lord, married unbelieving women and took on the false God’s of the tribes all around. They did not seek the Lord or obey Him. God eventually gave them over to their enemies to teach them to be faithful. The psalmist ends by asking God to again deliver His people and show mercy to them, that they will again praise the name of the Lord. May all God’s holy people agree by saying “Amen…”

Please read Psalm 105 (45 verses)

We tell and retell the wonderful acts of the Lord and glorify His powerful name that has brought all this world and the eternal world to pass. Those who seek His face obtain strength to live in this sinful world, that militates against Him. The psalmist tells us to look to the Lord and seek His advice and company always.

We are to remember the calling of the Lord of His servant Abraham and the faithfulness that keeps us as His chosen people, the children of Jacob. All who are trusting in Christ are included in the household of faith, whether Old Testament saints or those who come after Christ and are part of the church age. God remembers His covenant to redeem a people for Himself and bring them to the reality of a promised land, both physical Canaan and the spiritual home of all the saints of God – heaven.

When the people of the Lord wandered and had no home in this life, He kept them and allowed no one to oppress them and make them afraid, for He was their God and their portion forever. They may have been relatively few, but the mark of the covenant was in them, and God did not permit the troubling of His anointed ones.

God sent Joseph to deliver them, and they put him in shackles and made him a slave. Joseph found himself in prison and the Lord raised him up to be the leader in the land and to deliver many people out of the grip of famine. God brought his people to Egypt where they became many and caused fear in the Egyptians, who then oppressed them with hard labour and slavery. God delivered them again through the hand of Moses. Moses performed miraculous signs in the land of Egypt to release the people from their penury and bring them out to freedom. The people of God left Egypt laden with treasures, because of the favour of the Lord of them.

God sent them cloud and fire to comfort them with His presence, and gave manna and quail to eat and water from the rock to drink. God kept His promise and brought His people out of bondage with shouts of joy and delivered the land into their possession. Praise the Lord…

Please read Psalm 104 (35 verses)

The psalmist is praising God from the depths of his being and recognising the many and glorious provisions God has made for the whole earth – humankind and beasts of all types. He focuses on the provision of water in our atmosphere and world and how it provides for the life needs of every living thing. God sends water on the earth and the plants grow giving food to every creature and the livestock and plants that humans eat. God made the world and separated the land from the waters which He now keeps in boundaries that it will never flood the earth again. God makes springs of water to refresh the creatures He has made and provide for the lives of all His humans that He has created.

God makes the life-giving springs which waters the mountains and makes grass grow for the animals. It brings forth food and wine that feed us and makes us glad. God makes the night, the moon and the night animals that hunt and creep until the morning and then humans can go about their days.

The sea is full of creatures that wait for the Lord and giants who play there are sustained by His mighty hand. When God makes them afraid, they die and return to dust, as we also do. The Spirit of the Lord creates them, and ends their life according to His purposes.

The psalmist says he will sing to the Lord all his life and as he meditates on the work of the Lord he will rejoice in what God has done. Sinners will vanish, but the soul of God’s people will praise Him.

Please read Psalm 103 (22 verses)

The psalmist is now exultant in the Lord his God. His misery has dissipated and he is seeing the reality of the grace of God as it is. He instructs himself to praise the Lord in his soul, his inmost being. He rehearses what the Lord has done for Him in the Lord’s saving and keeping power from His heart of compassion. The writers life is redeemed from the pit and his youthful vigour, even in old age, is renewed like the eagles. At length, the psalmist rehearses the goodness of the Lord and the glorious attributes that make Him who He is. He is worthy of all worship and praise.

The Lord is so compassionate and does not treat us as we deserve. He will not always accuse but will deliver us from all evil and forgive all our rottenness. His love is beyond measure and reaches far beyond the stars, and His kindness removes our sin so far away that it is not remembered.

God is the ultimate Father and remembers that He made us from the dust of the earth. He knows every frailty and sees every failure, yet has such loving compassion on us. This is the view we see when we are right with God and have put aside all our sin and are walking steadily with Him daily. It is the delight of the believer to stay in step with the Lord, lest we should lose that felt presence of the Lord every moment. He promises to be with us and our children down through the generations if we remain faithful to His holy commandments.

The psalmist reminds us that God rules every heaven and created all that exists. He even instructs the angels to praise the Lord wholeheartedly and us also as we lift up holy hands. He remonstrates with all creation to sing out to the Lord, songs of joy and praise in every part of the dominion of God. We praise the Lord…

Please read Psalm 102 (28 verses)

We become easily and quickly distressed. The psalmist calls out to God for help and this is also our response to trouble. This Psalm is written to encourage the future generations and educate them of the ways of the Lord. The Lord will release the prisoners in every generation of humankind and bring people out of slavery and destitution. He will not let the guilty go unpunished and will deliver the oppressed from their prison.

The prison in this Psalm is the prison of the mind. The psalmist finds himself again at a low ebb in terms of his mood and has become very thin and cannot rest and sleep. The accusations of the enemies in his psyche has gotten the better of him and he is reduced to skin and bones. His heart blames him continually and he is in distress about his thoughts and feelings. He feels that God has now finally and forever cast him aside and his life is now just a shadow of what it once was.

The saving grace in his situation is the compassion of the Lord, which the writer has experience of. He knows the Lord sits in the city of Zion and has compassion on His people. The Lord will show favour to the people He loves and bring healing and wholeness. Throughout his life the psalmist was experienced brokenness and the thoughts and feelings that make him believe his life is over, but he prays to the Lord and rehearses the power and majesty of the Lord that created the whole earth and heavens. He knows that even the glory of the skies is as nothing to the glory of the Lord and one day God will bring an end, even to them. God is eternal and His years never end. God will establish His people and the children of His people will dwell in His presence.

Please read Psalm 101 (8 verses)

These activities in this Psalm are the straight paths of righteousness in the life of the Christian. The psalmist lays out a series of promises that he makes to the Lord about his attitude and behaviour. The psalmist places love and justice as the very centre of His life. He desires a heart like God’s heart and seeks to live a blameless life. He longs for the coming of the Lord to bring in the everlasting kingdom.

The writer would keep all his life pure, from the way he runs his house and family, to the details of his own inner personal life with God. He will have nothing to do with evil and will stay away from all perversity and perverse people. People who gossip about others and betray their proud hearts will be silenced and only those who walk uprightly will be his close friends and confidants. It is a fine line to walk in the ways of the Lord and we should be able to encourage each other and instruct each other in holy living.

Honesty is of prime importance. The psalmist would seek the company of those who live their lives with integrity and are honest with themselves and other people. When we start to go astray and spend too much time on ourselves, we need to recognise that and face what we are like and bring it to God. God seeks truthfulness in our innermost selves and not just the outward show of seeming goodness. We seek holiness of life and a close walk with God.

The psalmist is vehement in his zeal for the Lord and does not tolerate evil in himself or others. He is seeking every day to draw closer to God and see the hand of God directing his life for good and not selfishness or hypocrisy.

Please read Psalm 100 (5 verses)

The whole created earth, humankind and all things made by us, is to shout in praise to the Lord. We worship Him with gladness and joyful songs of praise. If we are feeling down and depressed we are to shout and sing to the Lord and this will lift our souls to God and benefit us too. We are not shy or self-conscious about our worship, but express what we are feeling and knowing in the power of the Holy Spirit. We all respond to music and lyrics and they lift our psyche up and surround us with great thoughts and feelings.

We are to know the Lord. Not just know about Him, but know Him personally and intimately and to be walking in His felt presence every day. We must not allow the things of life to tread us down and make us forget our holy companion. We search the Scriptures to know Him better and stay in tune with Him. We are His precious people and He delights to know us and have us walk through life with Him.

As we come into the house of God, we come with thanksgiving and praise. Gratitude is the antidote for all bitterness, reservation and rancour. We are coming to the captain and Saviour of our souls, to adore Him and all other considerations are secondary. We leave our issues to one side and ask the Lord to deal with us and them, and lift our voices and hands in worship to our Lord and God. As we focus on Him, we see clearly that the Lord is good and His mercy endures towards us through all generations and all circumstances. He will bring us safely to the worship in heaven, where His glorious name will forever be exalted.

Please read Psalm 99 (9 verses)

The Lord is high and lifted up, exalted above all things that exist, for He has made them and they belong to Him. He is seated in the highest heaven between the cherubim, on the throne of holiness and power. He sits enthroned in the centre of the mercy seat, where we can come to Him with all our needs and requests. We can depend on Him because of who He is and that He is the perfect one. We should be filled with awe in His presence and have fear and reverence for Him. The nations will bow down to Him and the Queens and Kings of this world are set on high by Him. We should praise His name because of who He is and that He is holy.

All the activity of the Lord is full of justice. He metes out equity according to His knowledge and eternal will. He has judged His people with all fairness and has extended mercy to them. God loves justice and will ensure that righteousness prevails for every human. We may not experience it in this life, but we know there is judgment to come. If we should be left out of justice in this life we can be certain that God will work justice for those who are trusting in Him. And more. We experience His love and mercy when we come to Him in repentance and contrition. There is grace for all who will humble themselves and come to Him for their own personal debt to Him. He will sweep it away because Christ has died and fulfilled the justice of God on our behalf.

We have the witness of the pillars of faith in the Scripture as witnesses to this amazing mercy and grace and the beauty of God’s righteous dealing with them. We see their witness and seek it for ourselves. They responded in obedience to God’s commandment and so should we. God does punish misdeeds and teaches us His justice, but we revere Him and He forgives and lifts us up to be mighty in His kingdom. We worship Him…