Psalms 66:1-3 Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; / 2 Sing forth the glory of His name; / Make glorious His praise. / 3 Say to God, How awesome are Your deeds! / Because of the greatness of Your strength, Your enemies come cringing to You.
Psalms 66:4-5 All the earth will worship You / And sing psalms to You; / They will sing psalms to Your name. Selah / 5 Come and see the works of God; / He is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men.
Psalms 66:9 Who has kept our soul in life / And does not allow our feet to slip.
Psalms 66:13 I will come into Your house with burnt offerings; / I will pay my vows to You,
Psalms 66:20 Blessed be God, / Who has not turned my prayer away / Nor His lovingkindness from me.
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Fellowship to help us know Christ and pursue Him
The psalmist instructs us to shout, to sing, and to make glorious God’s praise. This part of this psalm is like something from a counselor to us. We are helped with what to say to God when we go to Him. We are told to tell God what we think of what He’s done, “How awesome are Your deeds!”. The psalmist then turns to God Himself and tells Him, “All the earth will worship You and sing psalms to You. They will sing psalms to Your name.” Interestingly, this psalmist then turns back to us and instructs us some more. It is as if he said to us, “go ahead, review some more all the wondrous things God has done for you.”
How wonderful that we can come to the Bible and be counseled. The writer, we can be sure, is one who goes in and out of prayers and instructions. What a model, what a pattern. What a joyful way that God has laid forth for us to know Him and be brought to worship Him.
Praising God for all that He has done is something for all Christians. New believers as well as mature ones can spend much time with the Lord. At first, we might say that we tried to spend some time with the Lord but that we quickly ran out of things to say. Now, we are seeing that all the things around us and that are related to us, all the things that God has arranged for us and provided us, all these are things we should praise God for. We can praise Him for giving us breath. We can be grateful to Him for keeping us all these years.
Then the psalmist says, “I will come into Your house with burnt offerings;/I will repay my vows to You,/Which my lips uttered/And my mouth spoke when I was in distress./I will offer to You burnt offerings of fatlings /With the smoke of rams;/I will offer bullocks with goats” (vv. 13-15). These verses indicate that the psalmist is engaged in a business transaction. His offerings are his repayment to God for His goodness. First, the psalmist receives God’s goodness, and then he pays for it with his offerings. (Life-Study of Psalms, Chapter 26, by Witness Lee)
For the new testament believers, one of our offerings to God is our opening our mouth to praise Him. Let us be like the psalmist in the Bible, worshipping God strongly! God is altogether worthy to be praised. Praise Him! Thank Him!