The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms

by Timothy J. Keller

So to know how to meditate on and delight in the Bible is the secret to a relationship with God and to life itself. Views contrary to God’s Word are no anchor in time of need. God’s Word gives us the resilience of a tree with a source of living water that will never dry up.

NO INTIMIDATION. Each day the media highlights new things to fear. The “powers that be” in society tell us that obedience to God shackles us, limiting our freedom. In reality, liberation comes only through serving the one who created us. Those people and forces that appear to rule the world are all under his Lordship, and one day they will know it. God still reigns, and we can take refuge in him from all our fears. So to be intimidated by the world (Psalm 2) is as spiritually fatal as being overly attracted to it (Psalm 1).

God’s response to human pride and power is to install his “son” on Zion. This points beyond Israel’s king to Jesus, God’s true Son. One day he will put everything right; but he will do this by going first to Zion—to Jerusalem—to die for our sins. To “kiss his son” is to rest in and live for him. If we do this, we have assurance that no matter what happens to us, ultimately everything will be all right. If we don’t live for him, we end up fighting God himself. So “there is no refuge from him—only in him.”8

God is the only one who sustains you, whether an army is pursuing you or you are at home in your own bed. God sustains every breath you take.

Lord and Savior, I am facing so many troubles, some of my own making. But I can hold my head up because I am your child and servant. So be my shield—protect me. And be my glory—give me confidence that you are with me and will bring me through this. Help me! Amen.

Many of the psalms begin with desperate “laments”—cries for help from deep within. This is uncensored prayer, straight from the heart. Even when we have no words to express our anguish, we can lay our requests before God. He expects us to come to him for refuge from our grief, fear, and pain and not to dull those emotions with amusements and distractions that promise, but can never deliver, blessing. We are to have confidence that he is the God who told Moses that he would faithfully commit himself in love to us, in grace, despite our sins and flaws (Exodus 6:7).

“Thy promise is my only plea—with this I venture nigh. Thou callest burdened souls to Thee, and such, O Lord, am I.”9 I know that your love is unfailing even if I don’t feel it. But I ask that in your grace you touch me and give me a sense of your presence at my side. Amen.

How do we deal with gossip and slander and the loss of our reputation? David shows us straightaway. He doesn’t say, “I will take refuge in God,” but rather shows that he already has, that he is already safe. How can he feel that way before he knows whether the smear campaign will be thwarted? The answer: if we trust in God’s wisdom and will, then we have peace regardless of the immediate outcome. It is only God’s opinion of us that counts, and that will prevail.

Lord, some criticisms are terribly unfair. My deepest comfort is knowing that you see all things and will in the end set all things right. So I will not desperately defend myself or strike out at my accusers and insinuators. You know the truth, and that suffices for me. I leave this all in your hands. Amen.

GOD ON HIGH. David has not done the things of which he is accused (verse 8). He wants God to take his throne on high (verse 7) and right all wrongs. He rightly leaves retribution to God, who alone has the wisdom to know what people deserve as well as the power and right to give it to them. So should we. But how can we be sure that we will survive Judgment Day? Christians know that before the Lord is lifted up on a throne to judge, first he will be lifted up on a cross to atone for sin (John 12:32). So on the final day a joy-filled, redeemed people will assemble at his feet (verse 7).

Righteous Lord, I have many who falsely accuse me. Defend me from them! But I also know my sin, and my heart rightly accuses me. I rest in Jesus’s atoning death for me. “Be Thou my Shield and hiding Place, that, sheltered by Thy side, I may my fierce accuser face, and tell him Thou hast died!” 10 Amen.

Because we live in a broken world, much injustice will go unpunished until the final day of judgment. However, most of the time, God’s justice works itself out within the fabric of history. Evil carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Not only is it a bore—leading to dissatisfaction and emptiness (verse 14)—but it recoils on itself. You fall into the pit you have dug for others. Haters are hated, deceivers are deceived, gossips are gossiped about. Remember this until you are not intimidated, discouraged, or tempted by the wrongdoing you see around you.

Lord, I admit that some of my resentment of those who wrong me is tinged with envy. They live as they choose, and they seem happier than I am. But that is an illusion. Evil is like cancer cells—they grow, but only toward collapse and destruction. Help me see that clearly, so I can forgive them and not be tempted by them. Amen.

This psalm helps us toward the spiritual health of a thankful heart. We must discern God’s “wonderful deeds” in our lives, a phrase that can refer to dramatic miracles like the parting of the Red Sea. However, we must also learn to see the more subtle ways God comforts us just when we were ready to give up, or brings the right friend or book or line of thinking into our lives just when we needed it. Recognize and tell of God’s daily, wonderful deeds, and you will have a note of grateful joy as the background music to your life.

This psalm moves suddenly from thanksgiving to a cry for help amid suffering. Life is like that. But David grabs hold of a truth that keeps him from sinking. The core sin is to forget that God is God and that we are not. And this is justice—those who forget God will be forgotten, but those who remember God will be remembered forever (Isaiah 56:5). Christians know of one who remembered God yet was completely forsaken (Matthew 27:46). But because Jesus died in our place, we can be even surer than David that God will always be there for us.

Augustine taught there were two “cities” or ways to live in society—one based on self-giving and one on self-serving. To worship the desires of the heart (verse 3) leads to habits of self-expression and self-assertion rather than sacrificial love. It is this way of life that appears to be ascendant in the world, with a God who seems to be far away and doing nothing about it (verse 1). The psalm describes this situation in painful detail, as a way of keeping us from even subtly going along with this manner of living. Like the psalmist, we need to resist it in prayer and in our daily life.

DON’T DESPAIR. When life crumbles, the desire to run away and hide in despair is strong. David counters this impulse with three insights: theological—God is still on his throne and will execute justice in his wise time (verse 4); practical—crises are really tests, opportunities to evaluate what is true and solid and what is flimsy and should be discarded (verses 4–5); and spiritual—what we really need is the knowledge of God’s presence and face (verse 7). Only love makes you interested in gazing on someone’s face. Pray until God and his love become more real to you. Then you won’t run scared.

Lord, I am surrounded by people whose words are either fawning and flattering or malicious and stinging. Don’t let me imitate them. Make my words honest and true, economical and few, wise and well chosen, calm and kind. Give me so much love and grace that this kind of conversation comes naturally to me. Amen.

FOOLISHNESS. In the Bible foolishness means a destructive self-centeredness. Fools cannot bear to have anyone over them, and so they ignore God or deny he exists. Some of this rebellion exists in every heart. Every sin is a kind of practical atheism—it is acting as if God were not there. That also means that belief in God must be a gift. This psalm is famously quoted in Romans 3:11: “There is no one who seeks God.” Left to ourselves, we would never want to find God, much less know him. So take heart . . . If you want God, it is because he wants you to find him.

Lord, I often struggle with doubts about you, and this psalm makes me realize they don’t all come from my intellect and mind—many come from my heart. Part of me doesn’t want there to be a God I have to obey. Increase my faith, through your Word and Spirit, and through believing friends, “the company of the righteous.” Amen.

LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

A CLEAR CONSCIENCE. David is not claiming to be sinless as a human; he is denying that he is corrupt as a ruler. He has not lied to his people (verse 3) or taken bribes (verse 4). He is being falsely accused but his conscience is clear. How can we always keep a clear conscience? There are two parts to it. Do the right thing. But when you don’t, immediately repent, knowing that you are “the apple of [God’s] eye.” In Christ, astonishingly, God does indeed see us as perfect (Philippians 3:9–10). So whether you are falsely accused or fallen and recovered, you can walk with your head up.

HOPE IN THE DARKNESS. The callous people who cross any line, flout every law, laugh at compassion, and do whatever it takes to be happy right now are indeed those we need to fear in this life. Living a self-absorbed life will always be at the cost of everyone else. In such a dark world, David maintains hope. He remembers that cruelty always comes home to roost (verse 14). But verse 15 goes far beyond such computation, reminding us that someday we will see the Lord as he is (1 John 3:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18). To gaze into infinite beauty and to receive such infinite love will give us a satisfaction that will last forever.

I LOVE YOU, LORD. The psalms repeatedly call God a refuge, because we so constantly need it. Habitually turning to God for refuge is the only real support we have in life. In Psalm 2 David took refuge by remembering that God will put all things right eventually. In Psalm 7 he took refuge by resting on God’s wise arrangement of his current life circumstances. Here we see David taking refuge by thanking God exuberantly for past blessings. When he says, “I love you, Lord,” he uses an unusual Hebrew word that conveys deep emotion and passion. Cultivate such love by considering how God delivered you through the drama of the cross (Romans 5:8). That will make you strong.

In verses 34 through 45, David says he defeated his enemies, but here he says God did it. Is it we who work or God? Both—and this paradox (Philippians 2:12) is no contradiction. David knew, in the end, that God accomplished it all through his grace, despite David’s imperfect efforts. But that did not make him passive. Work done in the belief it is all up to us becomes a joyless, deadly grind. Only those who know that salvation comes by sheer grace, not our efforts, have the inner dynamic of grateful joy (Colossians 3:15–17) that empowers the greatest efforts. So the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).

Lord, help me remember that my salvation in Christ is complete—so the great work is already done, the great debt already paid, the great disease already healed. That enables me to take on all lesser tasks and challenges with confidence and joy. I put myself in your hands—work through me. Amen.

“fitfully reflects.”

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Nature tells us about God’s reality and power but not about his saving grace (verses 7–14). Only the Bible can enlighten the spiritually blind (verse 8) and “refresh the soul” (verse 7). Since the Hebrew word for “soul” means one’s psyche or self, the Bible has the power to show and restore your true identity. For the Bible to do all this, you must accept that it is perfectly true and trustworthy in all its parts (verses 7–9). Then don’t just study it but let it search you (verses 11–14). Finally, ask Jesus, the Word made flesh, to give you his Spirit in order to find him in the written Word. The result will be wisdom, joy, and sweetness.

Lord, I am so grateful that you don’t make us guess who you are but that you speak directly to us. But if the Word is going to be sweet and life-giving to me, I must let it examine, search, and warn me. Help me have the discipline and faith to let it do that in my life. Amen.

This psalm of David poses a puzzle. The speaker’s hands and feet are pierced (verse 16), his bony frame exposed (verse 17) as he experiences fatal dehydration (verse 15). This is not describing illness or persecution but rather an execution. Nothing like this ever happened to David, and the usual cries for justice are absent. It’s as if this were a punishment that, though not deserved, must be submitted to. Jesus understood this psalm to be about his death (Matthew 27:46). Here, then, we have something remarkable—a look into the horror and agony of his heart, described by Jesus himself. Reading the psalm is like standing on holy ground.

“O wondrous love! to bleed and die, to bear the cross and shame; That guilty sinners, such as I, might plead Thy gracious name.”

Our mission to the world tells the good news of God’s salvation to all classes (the poor in verse 26 and the rich in verse 29), to all races and nations (verse 27), and to all generations (verse 30). What is this universal message? It is that salvation is something not that we attain but that he attains and gives. “He has done it!” cries David. “It is finished,” cries Jesus (John 19:30), using the Greek tetelestai, a term that has the connotation of payment. “I have paid your debt to the last penny; I have drained your cup to the last drop,” he says. There is now no condemnation left for us (Romans 8:1).

David loves that God’s glory—his infinitely holy and beautiful presence—dwells in the temple (verse 8). Even more marvelous is the Gospel, which tells us that Jesus is the true temple (John 2:20–21). God’s glory dwells in him (John 1:14) and in all those who unite with him by faith (1 Peter 2:4–5). Those odd people in the next pew? That couple with the whiny baby? Those young people who don’t dress right for church? They should be objects of your love and respect because God’s glory dwells in them. The weight of their glory should “be laid daily on [your] back, a load so heavy only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”19

David is having difficulties, but the beauty of God enables him to live in confident peace (verses 1 and 6). If our hearts delight in God and his face, then we can contemplate losing earthly joys without fear. Even if our mother and father forsake us, we can face it (verse 10). Why? If our greatest treasure—communion with the living God—is safe, of what can we be afraid? Yet we are afraid of so many things. So our fears can serve an important purpose—they show us where we have really located our heart’s treasure. Follow the pathway of the fear back into your heart to discover the things you love more than God.

David fears being “drag[ged] away with the wicked” (verse 3) to the “pit,” a word that can mean a dungeon for offenders (verse 1). He cries to God at the prospect of being unfairly charged and counted as a corrupt ruler. This is a major theme of the psalms, but not one that most of us in comfortable Western societies can easily understand. “Nothing stings so sharply as injustice, and nothing should; so these verses are not simply vindictive, but put into words the protest of any healthy conscience at the wrongs of the present order, and the conviction that a day of judgment is a moral necessity.”20 Christians should also cry to God day and night against injustice (Luke 18:7).

Enable me to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”21 the Scriptures and therein encounter you, my living Lord. Amen.

Lord, so many of the circumstances of my life make no sense to me, but they make sense to you. Help me, like David, to rest in that. My times are truly in your hands, and that is absolutely, infinitely better than if they were in my hands. Amen.

Many insist that guilt is an imposition of society or religion, that people can define right and wrong for themselves. Nonetheless we have a sense of condemnation, of not being as we ought, that we can’t shake. The liberation of forgiveness starts with honesty. It is only when we uncover and admit our sin (verse 5) that God is willing to cover it (verse 1). That is, he removes our objective guilt so it can’t bring us into punishment (verse 5), and he removes our subjective shame so we don’t remain in inner anguish (verse 3 and 4). The happiest (most “blessed”) people in the world are those who not only know they need to be deeply forgiven but also have experienced it.

Father, as great as my sins are, it is a great and additional sin to refuse to rest in your grace and accept your pardon. Give me the blessedness and release of knowing I am completely, absolutely, freely forgiven through Jesus. Amen.

God calls us to go beyond forgiveness to real friendship with him. We usually live as we should only if we have to, out of self-interest, because there are consequences that keep us on the path. That is to heed God like a mule, controlled only by bit and bridle (verse 9). Instead we should obey because we want to, out of love for him, who counsels us personally through the Word and prayer (verse 8). Sometimes God allows a difficult season of “mighty waters” to be a kind of bit and bridle that pulls us back to him and shows us we need his friendship and love above all else. Be glad that he doesn’t let us wander.

Lord, I don’t want to confess my sin only out of external compulsion. I want to look at the costly love of Jesus until I am sorry not just for the consequences of this sin but for the sin itself and how it grieves you. Only then will it lose its power over me. Amen.

Praise is “inner health made audible.”

Lord, keep me from putting my hope too much in my knowledge, social connections, and ability to plan. The reality is that we are completely dependent on you for everything. Help me to not resist that truth but to derive the comfort and grateful joy that come from gladly accepting it. Amen.

If you love someone, you are “quick-eyed” with them.27 You watch intently for the merest facial expression or gesture or tone of voice that hints at a need, so that you can meet it. Wonderfully, God loves us like that, his all-seeing eyes alert to both what threatens us and what nurtures us (verse 19). The psalm ends on a note of hope, but this is not a general optimism. The psalmist does not hope in God giving him this or that. He waits in hope for the Lord himself. He is focused “not on the gift (though there is a place for this: Romans 8:18–25) but on the Giver. Such hope will ‘never disappoint us’ (Romans 5:5).”

Lord, I can hardly believe that you, with your infinite power and glory, are watching me eagerly from heaven, filled with love, always attentive to my needs. You love me more—and infinitely more wisely—than I love myself. Help me to rejoice and rest in that enough not to worry. Amen.

Lord, my anxieties, shame, and discouragement come when I try to make my boast in other things than your goodness and unfailing love toward me. Teach me how to look to you and seek you until I know the radiance of your joy. Amen.

To enjoy a good life (verse 12) you must live a good life (verses 13–14). This challenges the lie of the serpent in Eden that if we obey God fully we will be miserable, that rich living lies outside God’s will, not within it.29 This lie has passed deeply into every human heart: that we would be happier if we, rather than God, were free to choose how our lives should be lived. But the ultimate good is knowing God personally, and the ultimate punishment is just as personal—to lose the face of God (verse 16), the only source of joy and love, to be “left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored.”

Father, if I want to love life, I have to love you—and loving you means doing your will with gladness. Shine your face on me—let me know your love—so I can love you for who you are. Remind me that the only loss that is unbearable is to lose you and your presence. Amen.

One of the great spiritual dangers of persecution is that it can make you self-righteous. You feel noble and superior because of your unjust victimization. Here David asks God to prevent his enemies from gloating over him, yet he does not gloat in return. To be happy over bad things that happen to others is called schadenfreude. David commits himself to rejoicing in God’s justice and greatness (verse 28) rather than his own moral superiority. While many bemoan the incivility that technology has made easy and anonymous, the cause is really the human heart that wants to fire back a defensive attack. Don’t try to pay back but leave it to God, who alone knows what people deserve (verses 23–24.) Let God be your vindicator; one day all will be known.