Bring Joy

DEVOTION

PSALMS

BRING JOY

Ps 104:31-35

31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works — 32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD. 35 But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more.

Praise the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD.  

NIV

His glory will endure forever, we have that promise, one the psalmist may not have had. He was writing this song far before God gave John the revelation of a new heaven and new earth and a new city of Jerusalem where his glory will shine forever. That glory will replace the need for the sun, his light will give light to the world. Maybe it is still some type of sun, but not this one. At any rate, his glory will endure forever. We can only hope that he rejoices in his works, as we are his works. Do we cause God to rejoice? We might well be confident of that because we are in Christ. That would give him a great reason to rejoice. He did not create Adam to perish, but to have fellowship with him. We were created for the same purpose, and when we fellowship with God, he rejoices in his work. But that also implies, within the context of the song, to the whole earth. God rejoices in the works of his hands, the planet he made for us to live in. He is in control of it as we saw before in this song. He gets great joy from watching the mountains, the rivers, lakes, oceans, team with life he created to roam on and in them. He rejoices in the weather he established to sustain his creation, as well as the way in which he created a symbiotic environment. All vegetation require the exhale of living creature’s breath and they require the exhale of all vegetation. It is perfect. He even created the volcano, the smoking mountain for his pleasure and they serve his purpose. When it all comes down to the basics, we will sing to the Lord all our life. As long as we have breathe in our lungs we will sing to our Lord. Then there is our meditation. That sounds like an old fashioned word, but it is still needed in our life. As we spend this time over a portion of the word of God, we are, in fact, in meditation. We ponder what God is speaking, first, to those it who originally heard, then to us, their descendants. How does it affect our lives, how should we respond to the word? The Hebrew word translated meditation carries the meaning of contemplation, but also utterance. So it could mean our pondering over the word, or in the way we utter words, which could be in prayer or in communication with others. All of that should be pleasing to our Lord, because we are his work. A day is coming the wicked will be no more, but we are the righteous because we are in Christ and we have been given the grace and peace of God the Father and of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have this assurance, but still we should live in a manner that pleases him and gives him joy.