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

by Timothy J. Keller

DON’T FRET. “Fretting” is a common activity of our age. It is composed of worry, resentment, jealousy, and self-pity. It is dominant online. It chews us up inside while accomplishing nothing. David gives three practical remedies. Look forward (verse 2)—those whose main happiness is found in this world are living on borrowed time. Look upward (verses 3–5)—neither repress nor vent your frustrations but redirect them to God. Leave your burdens in his hand (“commit”) and learn to find your heart’s deepest desires in who he is and what he has done (“delight”). Finally, get busy with the things that must be done—“do good” (verse 3). Self-pity can lead you to cut corners ethically. Don’t add a bad conscience to a heavy heart.

THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT. Who are the meek (verse 11)? The humble—who don’t second-guess God’s timing (verse 7). And the dependent—who leave vindication and vengeance to God (verse 9). David says they will possess the land, but Jesus speaks of meekness that inherits the whole earth (Matthew 5:5). Christians confess they have no power at all to save themselves and depend and rely wholly on the sheer grace of God. But how is that even possible? Because Jesus became meek and helpless (Matthew 11:29), like a lamb before his shearers. And why can Christians literally inherit the whole earth? Because he took our punishment Jesus was stripped of everything—they cast lots for his last possession, his garment. His amazing, loving meekness creates meekness in us.

THE PARADOXES OF FAITHFUL LIVING. Believers sometimes seem weak, but they are ultimately strong. We are “persecuted, but not abandoned” (2 Corinthians 4:9; verses 12–15). Those who live for their own power may have temporary success, but sin sets up strains in the fabric of life that will lead to breakdown. “Their swords” in various ways “will pierce their own hearts” (verse 15). Also, “having nothing,” we “yet possess everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10; verses 16–20.) Righteousness is no guarantee of prosperity. It is possible to be faithful and hardworking and end with “little” (verse 16). Yet riches can erode quickly and can’t help you in the next life, so only God himself—and his unfailing love for you—are investments that never lose their value.

The psalms are remarkable for recording with brutal honesty the cries of those who are sick and suffering. The Bible knows nothing of “Pain is an illusion” or “Just don’t let it get to you” or “If you really believed with all your heart, you would get your deliverance.” These views make human will the solution. But it is not “mind over matter”—it is God over matter. God alone can restore a body or a soul to health. Not a molecule of our bodies or a faculty of our soul does its appointed job without his upholding hand. If he removes his hand, even for a moment, we face the truth we so often ignore: Without his help, we perish.

Most translations of verse 1 say “I waited patiently,” but the Hebrew literally says “I waited-waited.” In Hebrew the doubling of a term conveys intensification and magnitude. This means not passivity but great concentration. Servants waiting on a great lord are not twiddling their thumbs but watching every expression and gesture to discern their master’s will. Waiting on God, then, is to be busy in service to God and to others, all in full acceptance of his wisdom and timing. That kind of waiting may indeed be long and excruciating, as Psalms 37 through 39 have shown us. But finally it leads to a new song of praise to God (verse 3) and joy (verse 4).

Lord, I remember with deep gratitude some of those slimy pits you lifted me from and those firm rocks you put me upon. And that helps me wait for you again now. Amen.

“Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more.”

The first part of Psalm 40 is a great thanksgiving for God’s help, together with powerful testimony about the changes of character that patient waiting brings. Verses 11–17 show, however, that situations that require waiting on God will always return, sometimes with startling suddenness. David is back under pressure, but this time he has a deeper sense of God’s unmerited grace (verses 16–17). The final verses also give us an abiding spiritual principle. “To compare what I am [verse 17] with what You are [verse 17] is a steadying thing; but to pray for God’s glory [The LORD be exalted, verse 16] is a liberation, the way of victory, and, as John 12:27f. shows, the way of Christ himself.”37

These verses bring up the sin of gossip. People come to see David in his sickness (see verses 3–4) only to spread news that puts him in the worst possible light (verse 6). His opponents impute the worst motives to everything he does (verse 7). Gossip is not necessarily spreading untruths. It is revealing information that should be kept confidential (Proverbs 11:13, 20:19). It is giving news about a person intended to lower him or her in the regard of the listener. Gossip can do its work with tones of voice or a roll of the eye. While we may think of gossip as a harmless diversion, the New Testament lists it along with envy, murder, strife, and hating God (Romans 1:28–30).

And Christians, though we break bread at the Lord’s table with him, regularly let him down. Yet he forgives us. So we should forgive those who betray us.

Father, there are persons who wronged me in the past whom, I realize, I have not fully forgiven. I hold their actions against them. I avoid them or I’m unusually hard on them. Let your costly grace to me through Jesus Christ so melt my icy heart that I can forgive fully and freely. Amen.

The psalmist has lost not belief in God but the experience of meeting with the living God (verse 2). Human beings need the sense of God’s presence and love as much as the body pants after water (verse 1). His first response to this dryness is to simply remind himself that it will not last (verse 5). “This too shall pass” is a fact about any condition in this changeful world. While often painful, the truth can be used for comfort too. Though our good things will inevitably be shaken, a believer’s difficult times will always end as well. Only when we are safe in heaven, surrounded forever by love unshakable, will all fear of change be gone. Hope in God, for we shall again praise him.

Lord, I praise you for being not just a remote, nebulous force but a living, personal God who can be known. I need your presence and love to sometimes soften my hard heart, strengthen my fainting heart, and humble my proud heart. Amen.

Lord, I need to learn how to preach to my own heart, rather than just listening to its foolish or panicky chatter. Help me learn how to effectively say to my unruly inward being, “Put your hope in God!” Amen.

Lord, you are my vindication and reputation—it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. You are my stronghold—nothing else can protect me from every danger, even death. You are my joy and delight—all others will desert me. If you are my God, why should I be downcast? Amen.

The bride is led to the king (verses 10–15). If the king is Jesus (see yesterday’s discussion), we are his spouse. He is enthralled with us (verse 11), but Ephesians 5:25–27 teaches that he doesn’t love us because we are lovely but in order to make us so, by grace. On the last day we will be united with him, as will all others, in love forever. Christian marriages can display a small bit of the joy that awaits us in heaven. But idolatry is a temptation. We must let our marriages reveal Christ, not replace Christ. And if we are not married but wish to be, we should remember that we already have the only spousal love that will truly fulfill.

Lord Jesus, you look on us as a spouse and lover, with passionate love and delight. I praise you that you can love like that, but I confess that I do not live like someone who is loved like that. Make it a truth that controls how I act every day. Amen.

God is the powerful King of the whole earth and is subduing people to his rule. But because God is the rightful King—the one we were created to know, serve, and love—the result of his conquest of their hearts is joy. They clap their hands because of his rule over them (verse 1). God is the fuel that our souls were designed to run on. So the greater the submission to the true King, the greater the pleasure. Rather than thinking of ourselves as an embattled political minority or persecuted underdogs, Christians should be so overflowing with the joy of our salvation that we feel the privilege of singing his praises to those who do not know him.

Lord, “sharing my faith” feels like a threatening duty, but it should not be that. If I urge people to believe in you, I am summoning them into joy. I should not do such a thing with a long face. Open my lips, that my mouth can speak your praise with winsomeness. Amen.

The song of the nations someday will be about how God saved the world through his grace. He chose and loved Israel (“Jacob,” verse 4) not because its people were wiser or better but simply because he loved them (Deuteronomy 7:8). So as we speak to others about God, there is no place for condescension or superiority. Every last one of us has been saved by grace alone, and so shall all his people be. The final verse reveals an astonishing vision. Eventually God’s people, the children of Abraham, will include people from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation (verse 9). This was promised to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), but only in Jesus Christ, in the ultimate ascension to the greatest throne (Ephesians 1:20–23), will it be realized (Revelation 7:9).

Lord, I often look at some people and think, “That type of person would never believe the Christian faith”—but to think that is to forget that no one is a Christian “type.” The only reason I believe or anyone believes is because of a miracle of your grace. So let me tell the gospel to all with confidence and hope. Amen.

When this psalm was written, the city of God was Jerusalem, containing the hill of Zion with the Temple, the place for the atonement of sin. But after Jesus, who was the final temple and sacrifice for sin, the city of God becomes a community of the faithful both in heaven and on earth (Galatians 4:25–29; Hebrews 12:18–24). The community of God’s people is to be “the joy of the whole earth” (verse 2)—an alternate human society based on love and justice rather than on power and exploitation. The earthly Jerusalem never did draw in the nations, but the transformed community of believers in Christ did (Acts 2:41, 4:32–35). Do our churches do that today?

Lord, too many of our Christian communities are ingrown and invisible at best or unattractive at worst. Help me become one small but important part of making my church beautiful to all around it. Amen.

GUIDE TO THE END. Jesus is the true temple (John 2:21), and when we unite with him by faith we receive his Spirit and become a living temple in which God dwells (Ephesians 2:19–22). When Christians “count [Zion’s] towers,” they thank God for the church and joyfully wonder at what they have become in Christ. When they “tell of them to the next generation,” they show inquirers the way of salvation through Jesus. And the Lord is “our guide even to the end” (verse 14). The end of what? There are many endings in life, the greatest one being death. Its mystery and terror are made bearable by the knowledge that Jesus will be with us, into death and out the other side.

Lord, I face crucial decisions in which both alternatives are morally permitted but are probably not equally wise. How I need wisdom to discern the best path, the best choice! Educate my heart and mind to make me wiser and a better steward of the resources you have given me. Amen.

NO SECURITY. The ordinary way to deal with the fear of the future is to “trust in . . . wealth.” (verse 6). But that is to put your confidence in something that will fail. Neither wealth nor any kind of human ingenuity can save you from bereavement, ill health, financial reversals, or relational betrayals—and finally, it cannot hold off your mortality. There is no “ransom” that can buy you out of death (verses 7–12). It is coming, and it will strip you of everything dear to you. It is, then, utterly foolish to live your life as if economic prosperity could keep you truly safe, or as if you will never die. Only God can give you things of value that death cannot touch but only enhance.

Prayer: Lord, I often catch myself imagining how much greater life would be if I had more. I also quietly “boast” in my heart when I see myself able to afford certain goods and inhabit certain places. Save my heart from such shallowness and foolishness. Amen.

Every human being owes God a death. Our sins mean we belong to death (verse 14). But God, instead of demanding a ransom from us, pays it himself (verse 15). The psalmist doesn’t know how this can be done, but he is confident. The missing piece is Jesus, who by his death killed death and set us free. Only at the cross do we discover how much it cost God to redeem us “from the realm of the dead.” So don’t resent, fear, or envy the rich (verse 16). Pity those who have nothing more than their riches.

God rebukes his people for two things. The first is external religiosity without inward heart change. Verses 8–13 show people who think their worship offerings are somehow doing God a favor. This is moralism, the idea that with our ethical life and religious observance we can put God in our debt, so that he owes us things. On the contrary, grateful joy for our undeserved, free salvation should be motivating all we do (verses 14–15). Examine your heart. Do you feel God owes you a better life? Do you obey him because you feel you have to in order to get what you want, or out of loving wonder for what he has done?

Lord, I cannot give you anything without remembering that both the thing I am giving you and even the desire to give it to you are both from you anyway! I can never put you in my debt. Because of what Jesus did, I am not my own—I’m bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Let that insight rid me of all grumbling and self-pity. Amen.

The second thing God rebukes is doctrinal profession of belief without life change (verses 16–21). Some worship weekly and profess an orthodox faith, but they engage in theft, adultery, slander, and gossip (verses 18–20) based on too small a concept of God (“you thought I was exactly like you,” verse 21). The judgment is terrible—but Jesus took it for us. He was torn to pieces (verse 22)—scourged, speared, nailed, crowned with thorns. Those who trust in him respond with a life of gratitude that honors God and reveals salvation to the world (verse 23). No one who is truly saved by faith and grace can fail to live a changed life of love for God and others (James 2:14–17).

Lord, I may not be committing theft or adultery, but my tongue does gossip and shades the truth. I confess that I am simply not changed enough by the great truths of the Gospel that I profess to believe with all my heart. Show me the specific gaps between my faith and my practice, and empower me to close them. Amen.

King David had fallen into an adulterous affair and resorted to murder to cover it up (2 Samuel 11). After Nathan the prophet preached one of the most powerful sermons ever recorded (2 Samuel 12), David’s confession to God is radical and intense: “Against you, you only, have I sinned” (verse 4). How can he say that when he has killed someone? It is because sin is like treason. If you try to overthrow your own country you may harm or kill individuals in the process, but you will be tried for treason because you have betrayed the entire country that nurtured you. So every sin is cosmic treason—it is overthrowing the rule of the one to whom you owe everything.

Lord, when I sin against others—and even against myself—I am ultimately sinning against you because we are all your possessions whom you love. When I sin I don’t just break your laws but trample on your heart. Help me to grasp that, because it helps me not just admit my sins but forsake them. Amen.

SIN CREATES A RECORD. In verses 1 and 9 David asks that his sins be “blotted out.” This means literally to wipe the writing out of a book. Sin creates an objective record—a debt, an offense against justice—that calls for punishment. If someone is found guilty, a judge cannot ignore the record. A criminal’s record can be wiped clean only if he or she pays the penalty. How, then, can God blot out David’s sin without striking him dead—the just penalty for all he has done? Only in the New Testament do we learn what it cost Jesus to “cancel the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us” (Colossians 2:14).

THE IMPORTANCE OF JOY. “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” is a prayer we should pray frequently. The Bible commands us to rejoice in God (Philippians 4:4). This is a command not simply to have an emotion but to remind ourselves in such a disciplined way about all we have in Christ that the greatness of it breaks in on our hearts. It is a sin to be less than joyful at what God has done in our lives. Furthermore, we cannot minister to others except out of our own joy. Our words will be hard, harsh, indifferent, or absent unless we are overflowing with the joy of knowing that we are God’s precious possessions, bought at great cost.

Lord, I don’t want my heart to be too cast down by my disappointments and losses—but it is hard. Send your Spirit to speak to my heart of the astonishing goods and glories I have and will have in you. Amen.

THE ELOQUENCE OF BROKENNESS. What is the broken and contrite heart God wants so much (verse 17)? It is a heart that knows how little it deserves yet how much it has received. To know only the first truth is to be self-loathing, to know only the second is to be self-satisfied—and both kinds of hearts will be self-absorbed. David is talking instead about hearts broken by costly, free grace—knowing both how lost and how loved we are. This gets us out of ourselves, freeing us from the need to be constantly looking at ourselves. When our lips are opened, we do not speak of ourselves but of God’s praise (verse 15).

Look at your daydreams. They tell you what you are living for, who you really are.

Lord, let me know my own heart. Help me nip any budding self-satisfaction, all tendencies to despise people. Let me spend my free moments praying to you rather than fantasizing about my success. Cast the boasting out of me with a humbling vision of your costly love. Amen.

THE RECOIL OF EVIL. The most basic prayer is: “Save me, O God” (verse 1). David leaves his vindication to God (verse 1) and to the natural outworking of evil’s self-destructive tendencies (verse 5). The self-defeating nature of evil is depicted nowhere better than in Perelandra, the second book of C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy. The character possessed by the devil gloats over the death of the Son of God until Ransom, the Christian, asks him, essentially, “And how did that work out for you?” The demon throws back his head and howls, because he remembers that in killing Christ he defeated himself and ended death. Evil is not locked in a battle with good. . . . The good has already triumphed and evil everywhere recoils on itself.

David’s impulse is to flee the trouble and pain and go elsewhere . . . anywhere (verses 6–8). In his case this would mean abdicating as king and letting someone else assume the stresses of leadership. In other cases it might mean giving in to temptation—by taking the way of least resistance, by lying, by undermining someone else to save yourself. It might entail falling into some addiction that numbs your pain. But there is no shelter apart from God. We must continue to trust in him, because all other “shelters” will prove to be places of greater danger. There is no other place to go. He has the words of eternal life (John 6:66–69).

Lord, I often want to just check out. Being the friend, the family member, and the Christian I should be seems so hard! But in your presence I realize that while living that way is hard, all the alternatives are harder, infinitely so. Be my support and keep me on the path of life. Amen.

SPEWING. Today’s media make it easier than ever to “spew . . . words . . . sharp as swords” (verse 7). Unlike in writing letters, we dash e-mails and text messages off without weighing them. Unlike in face-to-face confrontation, we blurt things out without fear of seeing the hurt or anger in the other person’s face. Because of anonymity we think no one can identify us. Words are thus more weaponized now than in David’s day. But every word—even an offhanded careless one (Matthew 12:36)—is an indicator of what is in the heart (Matthew 12:34) and will be judged by God. More often than ever we are saying, “I didn’t really mean what I said.” But you did. Watch and control words to know and shape your heart (James 3:1–12).

YOU CAN SNARL—I WILL SING. In contrast to the snarling, howling dogs is the singing, praising psalmist. Though still under attack (the dogs are still howling), he praises God in his heart for being his fortress and refuge. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee,” is a line from Augustus Toplady’s famous hymn. Jesus is the place we run to when under any kind of attack, and we can hide in him for safety. The psalmist calls God “my God on whom I can rely” and, literally, “my unconditional love” (Psalm 144:2). Christians know that love must be unconditional, not based on our worthiness, but because Jesus was “cleft,” split apart, to make a hiding place for us.

Lord, teach me how to regularly sing about your love. That will mean not just thinking about you but rejoicing in you and to you under my breath, in my thoughts, throughout the day. Help me do this, my loving God. Amen.

THE LESSON REMEMBERED. In verse 5 David counsels himself with the lesson of verse 1. The battle to shape our hearts with the truths our minds know is never over. And here indeed is the great truth of the Bible, the Gospel—salvation comes from God alone, not from ourselves or any effort we can produce (Jonah 2:9). “To the one who does not work but trusts [rests in] God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:5). David talks not just to himself but to “you people” (verse 8). We can best help others with their fears and distress when we have been through our own and found God faithful, our rock and our refuge. Prayer: Lord, the deepest impulse of my heart is to do things to secure your blessing rather than rest in what Christ has done for me. This only makes me anxious and in turn insecure and self-righteous. Teach me to “cast my deadly ‘doing’ down—down at Jesus feet” and to “stand in him, in him alone, gloriously complete.”45 Amen.

Lord, help me prosper in my work, but don’t let career ups and downs have power over me. Provide for my family’s financial needs, but don’t let wealth have dominion over me. I need not to love these good things less, but to love you far more than them. Give me the freedom that comes only through loving you intensely. Amen.

Lord Jesus, when you met the woman at the well, you told her that what she was looking for in male affection could be found only in you and the eternal life you give. Let me realize that my longings for professional success, social acceptance, and even family affection are functioning the same way. Give me the love that is better than life! Amen.

THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. Sleepless nights, tossing and turning, filled with anxiety and fear . . . Who has not had that experience? David puts his sleeplessness to a different use—he sings to God, praising him and thinking about his love, his goodness, and above all his protection. The “watches of the night” refer to military changes of the guard, and David is awake through all of them, so he has time for his mind to wander. But instead he clings to God, staying close enough to him to feel his presence helping him, as close as a baby chick under its mother’s wing. Training our hearts to spend our sleepless nights in praise and fellowship with God will redeem our frustration, turning it into a cherished intimacy with our Savior.