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

by Timothy J. Keller

5 Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. 6 Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Prosperity and security are not ultimately your accomplishments but God’s gifts (verse 1). So overwork, worry, and strain are foolish and wrong (verse 2).

if you are overworked and overstressed, you are forgetting who God is. Jesus said it most bluntly: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The church must not only support and repair families but also find a way to become the family of God where everyone, married and single, childless or not, can flourish in love.

Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.

We so often approach God only for what he can give, rather than simply to rest in his presence.

We are his dwelling place not because we have worked and earned it but because we were chosen by grace

The unity of God’s people brings opposites together, symbolized by tall Hermon in the rural north and the little hill of Zion in the urban south (verse 3). For Hermon’s dew to fall on Zion would be a miracle—and so is the supernatural bond that brings people far divergent in culture, race, and class together in the Lord.

Idols are usually good things turned into ultimate things because we look to them to give us the significance and security that can come only from God.

sound theology is not an end in itself but must be turned into praise.

Ethical compliance without fervent worship means you’ve given God your will but not your heart.

Lord, in your presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11), yet I work harder at my career and even hobbies than at learning to pray.

while God’s greatness can be logically deduced from the created world (Romans 1:20), God’s love is a complete surprise and wonder. Looking at the human heart and history, you would never conclude that God loves us. But he does! Paul asks for help to grasp not God’s righteousness but “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” (Ephesians 3:18).

Self-sufficient people don’t go to God with the same desperation and so never discover his love and his power on their behalf.

Forgive me for sinning against many of my friends by failing to pray for them.

I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. 6 I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land. 7 Answer me quickly, LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. 8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

So why would God even notice us, let alone love us? (verse 3). That question can be asked in skepticism or awe. The skeptic asks why any force capable of generating this vast universe would have regard for tiny, short-lived beings on a speck of dust called Earth? But for those who know “my loving God” (verse 2) that’s just the point.

14 The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. 16 You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

all true prayer “pursued far enough, becomes praise.”

Christians are saved by faith, not by obeying the law, but the law shows us how to please, love, and resemble the one who saved us by grace.

Lord, ethical behavior without joy-filled worship or exuberant praise without whole-life obedience—both of these are counterfeit Christianities.

When your soul through grace begins to praise God, you come into harmony with the rest of the universe, which is also singing. Your redeemed voice contributes its own unique chord and adds to the overwhelming beauty.

The psalms are, in the end, a miniature of life. Every possible experience, if prayed to the God who is really there, is destined to end in praise. Confession leads to the joy of forgiveness. Laments lead to a deeper resting in him for our happiness. If we could praise God perfectly, we would love him completely and then our joy would be full.