Give Thanks (Daily Encouragement)
to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. – Psalm 122:4
The main point of Psalm 122 and the gathering of God’s people is to “give thanks to the name of the Lord.” It is giving thanks and praise to who God is and all that he has accomplished for us through Jesus Christ. Remember, worship from beginning to end is about God. It is gathering each week to give thanks for and proclaim “God’s wondrous deeds and to glory in his supreme value” (Bob Kauflin). Like the story of the 10 lepers who were healed by Jesus, we are called to be the 1 who comes back to worship, to give thanks and to be with our savior. From Eugene Peterson:
Another reason Christians keep returning to worship is that it nurtures our need to be in relationship with God. Worship is the place where we obey the command to praise God: “To give thanks to the name of GOD—this is what it means to be Israel.” This command, to give thanks, runs right down the center of all Christian worship. A decree. A word telling us what we ought to do, and that what we ought to do is praise. When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us—he enters into our trouble and saves us. That is good, an instance of what the Bible calls gospel….That is the truth of our lives. God made us, redeems us, provides for us. The natural, honest, healthy, logical response to that is praise to God. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being.
How does remembering that God made us, redeemed us, provides for us shape how we view gathering weekly to worship him?