700 Seconds in a Psalm DJ Freemyer

Giving thanks can easily be dull.  We can neglect the components that form and fill the thanksgiving with active and loud engagement.  Thanksgiving can be exciting and emotional if we let it.  

In this psalm, the invitation is to be active and engaged in giving thanks.  Psalm 100 issues six calls and six reasons for how and why thanks can be given to the LORD.

Giving thanks can easily include some amount of self-praise.  Even in the middle of thanksgiving, we can find ourselves boast about what we have obtained or what we hope to accomplish.  Psalms of thanksgiving remind us that God is one who raises or lowers us.

In this psalm, thanksgiving is plucked to see if our act of giving thanks resonates with the truth that God is the One who establishes or cuts off our lives.  Boasting to elevate ourselves when giving thanks can have dire consequences as God can cut us down and display God's ability to judge and work wonders.  Boasting to elevate God when giving thanks can aid others in seeking aid in God who alone is worthy of all praise.  Psalm 50 invites us to declare God's praise forever and sing to the God who can lift us up or bring us down.  

Giving thanks can be hard to do, especially when life is not easy. Even in the most difficult of times we have blessings from God that can lead us to thanksgiving.  Psalms of thanksgiving remind us of what God has done so that we give thanks in every circumstance.

In this psalm, the natural world offers us good reasons for giving thanks even when others are giving thanks for the wrong reasons.  Psalm 50 enables us to examine ourselves and see if our motives for giving thanks come from good reasons or not.

Giving thanks can be hard to do, especially when life is not easy. Even in the most difficult of times we have blessings from God that can lead us to thanksgiving.  Psalms of thanksgiving remind us of what God has done so that we give thanks in every circumstance.

In this psalm, the circumstances of being mis-identified, mis-understood, and mis-judged are still occasions for giving thanks because of what the LORD does in purifying, posturing, and planting us.

Before his death, Jesus cries out a line from a song about being forsaken completely.  Jesus is forced to walk from a garden through trials and beatings to crucifixion, and no one cried with him.  Jesus is shamed and mocked by everyone, and no one cried with him.  Jesus is treated as if he were dead, and no one cried with him.  Feeling completely abandoned, Jesus sings in a loud voice a song about being all alone, without a single lamenter to join him, not even God.  Why? Why would God abandon someone instead of acting to save?  This episode explores what Jesus in Mark 15:24 and the composer of Psalm 22 boldly ask!

Every Monday in Lent join me for 700 Seconds in a Psalm as we prepare for Easter by looking at Psalms that Jesus quotes during the week before his death. Surprisingly, Jesus quotes more than 10 Psalms that week! We won't have time to examine every Psalm, but we will examine 6 Psalms Jesus quotes before and during his time on the cross.

Jesus dies in complete darkness according to Luke 23:44-46.  Without any sign that deliverance was coming, Jesus uses his last few breaths to cry out in trust to God.  Rather than respond to the mockery, slander, or insults, Jesus loudly quotes Psalm 31 before he breathes his last.  In quoting this psalm, Jesus recognizes that his breaths are in God's hands.  Jesus places a valuable deposit, his spirit, into the only secure place.  

Every Monday in Lent join me for 700 Seconds in a Psalm as we prepare for Easter by looking at Psalms that Jesus quotes during the week before his death. Surprisingly, Jesus quotes more than 10 Psalms that week! We won't have time to examine every Psalm, but we will examine 6 Psalms Jesus quotes before and during his time on the cross.