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Praying Psalm 100

praying-psalms

Each week we’ll be providing prompts for praying the psalm preached the previous Sunday. Start with Pastor Josh’s blog post covering Three Ways to Pray the Psalms.

Music has a way of recalling the clearest memories and creating the most powerful emotions. It can make you happy when you are sad, or sad when you are happy. The right song can transport you to another time; like how “Wipeout” takes me back to middle school birthday parties at the roller-skating rink. It has the power to take you back to your childhood or teenage years with the remembrance of joys or hardships you thought were long forgotten.

In the same way praise calls us to remembrance and transformation. Praise helps us to see the world in light of God. For right praise cultivates right perspective

One of the primary focuses for praise is that of thankfulness; thankfulness to God for who he is and what he has done. This gratefulness to God is essential to life. It is essential to our joy and contentment. It is essential to our ability to face whatever situation life brings our way.

One of the practices for this act of praise and thanksgiving is prayer. So as we continue to practice praying the Psalms we are looking to Psalm 100 as we consider praise and thankfulness to God. The following prayer prompts look at the two main sections of Psalm 100 and focus on prayers of thanksgiving to God. 

1Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
   2Serve the LORD with gladness!
     Come into his presence with singing!         

3Know that the LORD, he is God!
     It is he who made us, and we are his;
     we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Thank God for his sovereignty.
Thank him that you are not God and not in control.
Thank him for creating you and those you love.
Thank him for his constant care and promise to be with us even though we talk through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23).
Thank him for opportunities of service, and for your own vocation and work.
Thank him for the invitation to know his joy.
Thank him for the invitation to be in his presence. 

4Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
     and his courts with praise!
     Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5For the LORD is good;
     his steadfast love endures forever,
     and his faithfulness to all generations.

Thank God for being good.
Thank him for the small mercies you experience every day.
Thank him for his greatest expression of goodness to us in sending Jesus.
Thank God for never changing.