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

by Timothy J. Keller

Lord, I confess my overconfidence. I don’t feel like a sheep that needs a shepherd to do absolutely everything for it, but I am. I rely on my own wisdom, my career and bank account, my well-connected friends instead of on you. You, my great shepherd, are my only security. I put myself in your hands. Amen.

Lord, you love me like a father, and when I am in pain you are grieved. And yet, like a father, you love me too much to let me alone when I am living foolishly. When troubles happen, instead of crying, “Unfair!” help me to ask, “Is there anything you are trying to show me?” Then show me. Amen.

The psalmist hears the victims’ blood crying out to be avenged (verse 10). The Bible often speaks of injustice “crying out” to God, as did the shed blood of Abel against Cain (Genesis 4:10–11). The psalmist calls for God to pay back the invaders (verse 12). What he did not know was that Christ’s blood would someday be poured out in Jerusalem too, blood that “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24). It demands forgiveness rather than retribution for those who believe. Christians too can praise God in the face of mistreatment (verse 13). But in addition they love their enemies and pray for their salvation (Matthew 5:43–48).

Lord, how can I, who live only by your mercy and grace, withhold the same from anyone else? Thank you for lifting from me the impossible burden of thinking that I know what others deserve who have wronged me. Help me to leave that to you. Amen.

Lord, you said to the Ephesian church that they had “forsaken the love [they] had at first” (Revelation 2:4–5), and I sometimes feel the same is happening to me. How can I lose my attraction to the most beautiful face in the universe? Revive my soul and reopen my eyes to your glory and grace. Amen.

“O Jesus, make thyself to me, a living, bright reality. More present to Faith’s vision keen than any outward object seen. More near, more intimately nigh, than e’en the sweetest earthly tie.”77 Amen.

The very strength of this call to worship raises questions. We are not merely invited but commanded as a decree and statute to worship God with joy (verses 4). How can we “rejoice to order”? There are many ways we can do so. Since there are solid reasons why Christians ought to have joy, there are “valid means of awakening and ensnaring it.”78 Ephesians 5:19 tells us to use skillful music, to immerse ourselves in the psalms themselves, and to learn how to turn our hearts to God in gratitude moment by moment during the day. Also, we are commanded to meet regularly with one another for public worship (Hebrews 10:25), and we should not neglect this. Are you rejoicing in God?

Lord, my mind has no inclination to fix itself on you and your worthiness, purity, and beauty. My thoughts attach to useless things. Help me turn them toward you and your grace habitually, all day, so that I can “make music in my heart” (Ephesians 5:19) to you. Amen.

Dearest Lord, you have been with me long enough to prove yourself. Out of one rock after another you have brought a sweetness that overwhelms the bitter. Yet here I am in another hard place where I am doubting you. Forgive me. I will trust you in this. Amen.

Lord Jesus, there are indeed people who mistreat me, but none of them have crucified me as your enemies did to you. Yet you prayed for their forgiveness and put your Spirit in God’s hands. Help me to do the same. Amen.

How do we respond to these “imprecatory” psalms that ask God to destroy enemies instead of forgiving them? We should recognize something important here, namely that even in the Old Testament the psalmist is not trying to take revenge himself. These psalms, then, “allow us to turn our anger over to God for him to act as he sees fit” and align us with Paul’s advice to “not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath” (Romans 12:19).80 Once you relocate your enemies—taking them out of your hands and putting them into God’s—you may find yourself developing sympathy for them. Ultimately, no one will get away with anything (verses 9–13).

Lord, teach me not to resent those who mistreat me but rather to pity them. They have taken you on, and you are the judge who will not overlook anything. I leave them, and myself, in your hands. Amen.

Lord, I praise you because when I was your enemy, you lovingly drew me to yourself. How can I respond any differently to those who are making my life difficult? Help me to forgive those who mistreat me from the heart, and then seek their good, even if and when I tell them things they don’t want to hear. Amen.

LOVE SONG. This is the intense language of love poetry. The psalmist finds the very courts of the temple to be beautiful (verses 1–2), not for their architectural virtues but because God is there (verse 2). He is fully aware that all of his heart’s deepest longings will be satisfied not by belief in some remote, impersonal divine force but only by a living God—one who is encountered as a personal, living presence (verse 2). Make constant, immediate fellowship with God a priority. Stop flitting around like a bird and learn to live a life near God (verse 3).

Lord, my fellowship with you comes and goes. My nearness to you waxes and wanes. But today I resolve to live my whole life near you, to build my home near your altar. Show me what that will entail, and give me enough love and grace to do it. Amen.

Lord, I already have enough history with you to see that my driest and poorest times have been my richest. I still dread such periods, and that is right, but help me not to give up in them or forget that you are working out great things. Amen.

BETTER IS ONE DAY. A day near God is better than a thousand days experiencing anything else (verse 10). To know God and have even the lowest position in life (“a doorkeeper in the house of my God”) is infinitely better than living in luxury without God (verse 10). This is not hyperbole, for “no good thing does he withhold” (verse 11) from those who trust in him (verse 12). The New Testament will reveal the unimaginable scope of this. If he did not begrudge us his own Son, “how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). He does this for the sake of his anointed one (verse 9). For Christians this can only be Jesus.

Lord, fellowship with you is the “pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:45–46). It is the one treasure that makes everything else look like baubles. Help me see this and incline my heart to desire you, or I won’t endure on this spiritual pilgrimage into your presence. Amen.

BLUEPRINT FOR REVIVAL. This psalm is a blueprint for how to respond when your church community declines. Study past seasons of revival and reformation (verse 1). Church history is convicting and encouraging, showing how far we have fallen yet also what God can do. Next must come repentance, acknowledgment that our hard hearts and sin have put a barrier between God and us (verses 4–5). We must also cry out to God in prayer that he “show us” his unfailing love (verse 7). Revivals always involve a fresh “seeing” of the Gospel of grace—grasping it theologically and knowing it experientially. Finally we must wait on him, listening faithfully to his Word (verse 7–9).

Lord, I’m spiritually dry; send me the water of your Spirit. I was created and destined to “enjoy you forever,”81 and yet I am not doing that even now. “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” Amen.

Lord, your salvation brings all things together, yet I do not give myself to people in friendship and community. I am too wary of opening myself to others. Let your love heal me of my fears. Draw me closer to your other children, so I can have all you want to give me. Amen.

Lord Jesus, you alone have the “water of life” that brings satisfaction and joy—your grace and eternal life. Prevent me from looking to anything else for my happiness. “Who can faint while such a river, ever flows, our thirst to assuage? Grace which like the Lord the Giver, never fails from age to age?”84 Amen.

Lord, these psalms teach that we can bring you our anger, fear, and despair and lay them before you unfiltered. You understand. Yet as I do so I pray you will make yourself real to my heart so that, like a morning fog, these things can be burned away by the light of your presence. Amen.

Lord, I praise you that you are a God who understands what it is like to be human! That you understand what it is to be hopeless in the dark. That you have been tried and tempted in every way, as we have. So when I struggle I can go to you, my wonderful counselor, in my need. Amen.

Lord, my prayer life is so thin and cursory. Move me and teach me to lay my needs and concerns before you, grounding my requests in your own promises and Word. Such prayers honor you and deepen me and lift my heart and change the world. Amen.

Lord, my heart often resents your power and questions your righteousness. But when I think I know better than you, I sink under anxiety. How truly “blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you” (verse 15)! The more I accept your goodness and control of things, the more I can relax. Amen.

Father, David was not driven but called. He was not a career-oriented empire builder; he simply wanted to do your will, and you used him. Make me like David by your grace, which I have received only through faith in David’s greater Son, Jesus. Amen.

Lord, I praise you that your promises will always give us more than we dare think they promise us, not less. I’ve had a small taste of this over the years. You have helped me in deeper, wiser, and better ways than I originally imagined as a new believer. Let me live in joyful anticipation of my unimaginably great future with you. Amen.

Verse 4 is one the most widely quoted verses in the psalms because it comforts us when we are frustrated with God’s timing. Time moves slowly for us, as we crawl from moment to moment. God, who inhabits eternity, sees all of history in a single moment, so his timetable is unlikely to match our own. The psalm’s author, Moses, seems to look at life from the vantage point of old age, from where we can finally see, as God does, that our time here is short. Let this psalm make you wise before your time (see verse 12), when you still can determine to not waste your life on trifles. Soon it will be too late.

Lord, life is going by so fast! It frightens me unless I remember your eternity. We are as rootless as tumbleweeds and will be blown about all our lives unless you are our dwelling place. In you we are home. What I have in you I can never lose and will have forever. I praise you for this unfathomable comfort. Amen.

We are painfully reminded that our lives are exercises in disintegration—we are wearing down and wearing out until we are dust again (verse 3; cf. Genesis 2:7). Verses 7–11 remind us that death is not the natural order of things but the effect of our turning from God and the curse on all creation (Genesis 3:1–19). Without this robust doctrine of sin, we will not be wise (verse 12). We will be constantly shocked by what people (and we) are capable of, by how life swiftly takes away everything we love. We will trust in our own abilities too much and seek satisfaction in things that we will inevitably lose. Face sin and death or be out of touch with reality.

Lord, I have not done the profound soul work necessary to be ready to die. Give me the strength to ask the big question: Would I be ready to die tomorrow? Be such a “living, bright reality”85 to me that I can answer that question wisely and then do what is necessary. Amen.

Father, I want applause, approval, and praise from others. But that enslaves me. At night I toss in bed at snubs, at being ignored. Criticism feels like death. Help me live out of the joy and stability of knowing that I am your child and heir and that in Christ you delight in me. Amen.

There is much anger today against the greedy and heartless wealthy. God is the avenger of those who have been oppressed in every age, and he will judge those who use the power of their money to enhance their lives at the expense of others. Riches are not an evil in themselves, as Abraham and Job demonstrate, but they are an enormous temptation to self-sufficiency (1 Timothy 6:9–10). George Herbert’s stinging poem “Avarice” describes how, by overloving money, we give it a power over us that dehumanizes us. He says to money: “Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich; And while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch.”89 God’s judgment on oppressors takes many forms.

Lord, I praise you for being a God who avenges the weak and marginalized. But this truth is a two-edged sword. It comforts me when I see the horrendous inequities in the world. Yet it also confronts me with my own complacency in my comfortable life and my indifference to those in need. Go on dealing with my heart until I change my life. Amen.

Lord, help me to remember that you know all my thoughts. During the day let me live—and think—before your face. Let me practice your presence all day. Then I will not give in to foolish lines of inner self-talk that only darken my heart. Change my futile thoughts, O Lord. Amen.

Lord, I confess the blindness of my understanding, the stubbornness of my will, the foolishness of my thought life, and the addiction of my heart to things of this world. “False and full of sin I am; Thou art full of truth and grace.”91 Without that grace I am lost. I praise you that in Christ your grace abounds to me. Amen.

Father, how I need rest! I am weary with obeying the dictates of my fears, my drives, my need for approval and control. I need the deep peace of soul that comes when I stop trying to earn my salvation through my works and rest in your Son’s finished work of salvation for me. Amen.

Lord, grow my understanding of your grace until it rids me of the self-consciousness, lethargy, and pessimism that keep me from opening my mouth and identifying as a Christian in public. Forgive me for being silent about all you’ve done for me. Amen.

Lord, fill me with the daily joy and hope that come from my desire to see you face to face on that final day. “Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought; But when I see Thee as Thou art, I’ll praise Thee as I ought.”94 Amen.

Lord, your grace has cut down the tree of sin in my life, but the stump and its roots are still there and go deep. “Lord! Must I always guilty prove, and idols in my heart have room? Oh! Let the fire of heavenly love the very stump of Self consume.”95 Amen.

Lord, I praise you that you are a God of light, that in you is no darkness at all. There is still, however, plenty of darkness in me. I am blind to my faults; I find it hard to “see” your glory and love during the day. Fill my inner being with your light, whatever the cost. Amen.

“Jesus! my Shepherd, Husband, Friend, O Prophet, Priest and King. My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring.”96 Amen.

Lord, I once thrilled to hear tales in which trees and animals could talk, magic helped people escape death and the ravages of time, and love triumphed over evil. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we will be too, and all these things will be ours. Let me live all day in the joyful hope of my final rising. Amen.

Lord, when I first became a Christian I tried to live morally. To be holy is not less than that, but it is more. I want to belong completely to you, reserve myself only for you. I want you to take title to my heart and not let it invest itself more in other things. Make me holy, because you are holy. Amen.

Lord, prayerlessness is a sin against you. It comes from a self-sufficiency that is wrong and that dishonors you. Prayerlessness is also a sin against those around me. I should be engaging my heart and your power in their needs. Lord, I pray with all my heart that you would give me a heart for prayer. Amen.

THE MORE HIS, THE MORE FREE. The psalm summons us to offer ourselves to God, acknowledging that we are not our own (verse 3). This self-offering is to be conducted with delight and joy (verses 1–2). Neither moralistic religion (which sees obedience as necessary drudgery in order to put God in our debt) nor modern self-determination (which sees the loss of independence as a kind of death) can grasp this. Christians have an enhanced motivation for joyful self-giving. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). This indeed makes obedience a delight, a way to know, serve, please, and come to resemble the one whose sacrificial love for us endures forever (verse 5).

“Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King! The heavens are not too high, his praise may thither fly, the earth is not too low, his praises there may grow. Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!”97 Amen.

Lord, I pray for the leaders of states and nations, of business and commerce, of the arts and cultural institutions. I pray that honesty, wisdom, skillfulness, justice, and virtue characterize all their duties, and that their work be a public blessing. Amen.

Lord, the realism of your Word scares me. I don’t want to believe that I might go through pain like this. And I avoid people who are. That is wicked of me. Lord, you suffered infinitely, voluntarily for me. So I can face affliction—and help others face it—with you. Amen.