During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works …The eyes of all look to you,
Psalm 145:3-5, 15-16
and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
While I was in seminary, I began to read heavily of the theological works of Karl Barth. While his magnum opus, Church Dogmatics,
is a massive set of texts, he wrote a shorter work to summarize as much of his viewpoint as possible, entitled Dogmatics in Outline. In the midst of the pages of that book is a line that has stuck with me deeply: “Creation is grace: a statement at which we should like best to pause in reverence, fear, and gratitude.” As I’ve reflected on these words many times over the twenty years since I first read them, my understanding of the depths of the majesty and the power of God has deepened. Whenever I read through the Psalm that we are examining this week, I cannot help but think to Barth’s words.
How often do you simply stop and think about the why of praising God? So many of us come to church on Sunday (or watch the service online) without thinking about why we worship our Lord. At the root of the “theological answer” is that God is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. He is the one who not only ensured that we were each fearfully and wonderfully made in His own Image, but also the one who walked the road to Golgotha to die upon a cross for our sins, and who continues to lead us by the power of the Holy Spirit. All of which is a long and winding path to say that God is Sovereign; He is our one true King.
All that we have, all that we know, all that we count as our myriad blessings come from the grace of our Lord—even the simple fact that God chose to create something outside of Himself. When we consider the fact that God, who exists in perfection and in relationship within Himself to this strange thing we describe by using the word Trinity (and it is much easier to describe what the Trinity is not than it is to explain what the Trinity is), decided to speak the words of Creation itself, which allowed for each of us to be born and even to read these humble words, what does your heart want to do? Do you want to stand in awe and praise Him? Do you want to seek Him out with every fiber of your being? But even more importantly does it change the way that you think about God?
The praises that are offered to the Lord are not simply those that we experience in our lifetime, but they extended through all of the generations, and they will continue until all eternity, even beyond the time when God makes all things new. We, in our snapshot of history, are simply joining our voices as we lift our hearts and souls to praise, to adore, to worship our one true King.
For Discussion
- Why do you come to church? Or why do you not?
- Do you see God as Sovereign in your life or does something else stand in that place? What is that something else?
- How often do you think about all that the Lord has done, not simply in your life, but throughout the history of time?
Prayer
Sovereign Lord, we come before you in awe and humbleness that you, who spoke all of existence into being desire to know us. Help us to see you as you are and to desire to worship you in fullness and in truth. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.
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Devotionals