I have started a homeschool journey with my child, and one thing I am enjoying about the curriculum we are using is that it tries to draw things in the lessons back to God, and to remind us to be thankful and grateful in our lives. I think when we start with “Praise the LORD” it can shift our focus and alter the way we live our lives.
115:1 – Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.
As humans, we often crave praise and glory, but when we seek after those things, we create idols (though maybe not the physical ones mentioned in the following verses).
But our God is great and wonderful, and we need to trust in Him – He blesses people, He gives to us. And simply because of who God is, we ought to offer Him praise, “both now and forevermore.” (verse 18b).
I have enjoyed reading the Psalms, and I appreciate how so many of them are focused on praising God. I think if we re-framed our life to have that much focus on that, we would be better off.
~Stephanie Fletcher
Reflection Questions
What stood out to you most in these Psalms?
What have you praised God for this week?
What happens when we don’t praise God?
How can you be more intentional about praising God more regularly?
I live a short drive from the Blue Ridge mountains. The rolling hills of the piedmont area where I live slowly turn into mountains that tower over everything, rising up in the distance to dominate the landscape. Being so close means that hiking was a favorite pastime of mine growing up. The go-to hike in my area is called Table Rock. Just to the north of Greenville, there is a mountain that overlooks the rest of the upstate. At the very top, there is a bare rock outcropping that provides the perfect spot for a picnic. It can take anywhere from 2-4 hours to get to the top of the mountain and most of that time is spent going straight up. Still, I loved the feeling of anticipation of what the view would look like when we reached the stop and that anticipation kept me going even when I felt like my legs were about to give out. Towards the end of the hike, I was always red faced, gasping for breath, straining towards the next step up. But, that momentary struggle paled in comparison to the views at the top.
We’ve all probably faced times where it feels like our physical body is just about to give out. If you’re like me, it may be running 5 or 10k, a hard workout, a game of ultimate frisbee (or your favorite sport), a day spent weeding the garden in 100 degree heat, mulching the yard (also in 100 degree heat), or maybe just a really long day at work. These are moments where it seems like you’ll never make it to the end and your main thought is how can you just stop what you are doing and sit down. Each of these things, even if it seems like the difficulty will never end (and I’ve pushed through them all), has a time stamp on it. The struggle will come to an end, and we will arrive at what we’ve been working towards.
Paul knows about this. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-18, he writes, “7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. 10 We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who live are always given over to death because of Jesus, so that Jesus’ life may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you. 13 And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak. 14 We know that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you. 15 Indeed, everything is for your benefit, so that grace, extended through more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to increase to God’s glory.”
The clay jars are us! We are fragile. We can be pressured, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, but through it all, we will overcome. We live knowing that God will save us and raise us with Jesus. So when we feel like we are at the end of our rope, we are reminded that we are overcomers.
Paul goes on in verses 16-18, “16 Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. 18 So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
We are renewed day by day for an absolutely incomparable eternal hope in glory with Christ. We will be glorified in the kingdom, so we don’t need to worry about the present sufferings we may face here. Our momentary struggle pales in comparison to what we are promised at the end. Don’t stop striving! Don’t give up! We have an eternal promise that is greater than everything we face now!
In Ezekiel 28 through 31 God continues to condemn all of the other nations around Israel for their evil. He dedicates a lot of time to Egypt because they did not give glory to God for the blessings that he had given to them.
“9 Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the Lord.“‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it,” 10 therefore I am against you and against your streams,”
The ancient Egyptians had stumbled upon and settled in one of the most fertile areas on earth and because of the natural flooding of the Nile river at the right times of the year had prospered and grown in numbers and in power in the ancient world. For all of these blessings they did not thank God and instead had taken the glory for themselves, with their rulers counting themselves as one of the gods, and they took credit for the river and the life that it brought.
Today we live in a blessed nation that has a history of being mostly God fearing and because of that history God has blessed us for many generations and that has led to us being the most powerful nation on earth. We do not need to be afraid of foreign nations invading our borders because of the large oceans on either side of our continent, and we do not need to worry about having enough food because the fertile lands of the midwest grow an abundance of food and feed. We need to remember our roots though, and always give glory to God for the blessings he has given us. The Egyptians were on top of the world for many hundreds of years and might have thought that their glory days would never end, and likewise many in America feel like we are invincible, but if we stop serving God and giving him glory that can all dry up very quickly. Covid has shown us how quickly jobs and health can be lost, and how quickly life can change in strange ways. So let this be a wakeup call to us that we cannot be complacent in the good times, we cannot forget about the one who made the world and gave us all of the good things we have in life. We can also take this slower time during Covid to dedicate more time to God and work on strengthening our relationship with Him.
This weekend, I am playing in the band at reFUEL. I love praising God through music and have been doing that for most of my life. One amazing artist of Christian music is Chris Tomlin, and a few years ago he put out the song called “Not To Us.” (check it out here https://youtu.be/8m0LowihOXY) The first line of the song is “Not to us, but to your name, be the glory.” If you are reading along, you know that Chris Tomlin pulled that song right out of psalm 115:1.
In Psalm 115, the psalmist declares “Not to us, Yahweh, not to us, but to Your name give glory because of Your faithful love, because of Your truth.” The psalmist invokes the name of God and says “give Your name glory”. The name of God is so cool. YHWH(pronounced Yahweh), the actual name of God, is related to the Hebrew word for “to be” and means something like “the self-existing one, the one who has life.” YHWH God is the only one who exists not because of anything else but only because of himself. No other being has that power. Only one person is God. Therefore, because God is the only one who is God, because of his faithful love and his truth (115:1), the psalmists says “to your name give glory.” Which is why he says “not to us, because we are not God, but only to you give glory.”
The psalmist also says other things shouldn’t receive glory, honor or praise. They shouldn’t be for idols. (115:4-8) There are still idols today; money, sex, power, pleasure. These idols are worthless things, pointless things, death-giving things. These things shouldn’t receive our glory or our honor or our praise. More importantly, we shouldn’t give ourself glory. The psalmist gave a hard statement when he says “not to us, Yahweh, not to us”. The psalmist recognizes that we are not worthy of this glory or honor or praise, but only God is.
This week, live in the truth that God is the only one worthy of worship. Say with the psalmist “not to me, not to my pleasures, not to my bank account, not to my idols, but only to YHWH our God, will I give glory.”
-Jake Ballard
(From a fellow participant at reFUEL – Thank You, Jake for your ministry in music and word! You are a blessing!)
Seek Grow Love 