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

by Timothy J. Keller

All theologians and leaders of the church have believed that the Psalms should be used and reused in every Christian’s daily private approach to God and in public worship.

We are not simply to read psalms; we are to be immersed in them so that they profoundly shape how we relate to God. The psalms are the divinely ordained way to learn devotion to our God.

Every situation in life is represented in the book of psalms. Psalms anticipate and train you for every possible spiritual, social, and emotional condition—they show you what the dangers are, what you should keep in mind, what your attitude should be, how to talk to God about it, and how to get from God the help you need.

They are written to be prayed, recited, and sung—to be done, not merely to be read.

The psalms, by contrast, give us a range of divinely inspired voices of different temperaments and experiences. No other book, even of the Bible, can compete with it as a basis for daily prayer.

What is God’s glory? It is his infinite weight, his supreme importance. To glorify God is to obey him unconditionally. To ever say, “I’ll obey if . . .” is to give something else more importance or glory than God. But while glorifying God is never less than obedience, it is more. God’s glory also means his inexpressible beauty and perfection. It does not glorify him, then, if we only ever obey God simply out of duty. We must give him not only our will but also our heart, as we adore and enjoy him, as we find him infinitely attractive. And there is no greater beauty than to see the Son of God laying aside his glory and dying for us

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.