Psalm 100: A Prescription for Praise!

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord is God; it is He that has made us and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good: His mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.”

~   Psalm 100 (all verses, 1 – 5)

I love Psalm 100!

These 5 short verses are a prescription for a life of thanksgiving and praise!

Within these verses, we find the “why” of praise.

Why do we praise God?

* 1 *  Because He is good  (verse 5)

* 2 *  Because His mercy is everlasting   (verse 5 ~ some translations use “steadfast love”)

* 3 *  Because His truth endures to all generations   (v. 5 ~ some versions say “faithfulness”)

* 4 *  Because we are His people   (v. 3)

* 5 *  Because He is like a Shepherd to us   (v. 3 ~ He cares for our needs since we are the sheep of His pasture.)

* 6 *  Because the pasture is His   (v. 3 ~ We dwell within His creation, another provision.)

* 7 *  Because He is God   (v.3)

* 8 *  Because He made us   (v. 3)

* 9 *  Because anything we have as far as abilities and gifts (anything good within us) came from Him  (v. 3 ~ We didn’t make ourselves.)

* 10 *  Because He allows us to come into His presence   (v. 4 ~ We can enter His gates, His courts.)

* 11 *  Because He wants to be in relationship and fellowship with us, He gives us the keys to His presence.   (v. 4 He tells us that thanksgiving and praise are the outer and inner gateways to communion with Him.)

* 12 *  Because He wants us to be glad and to be joyful, to have hearts that sing.   (v. 1 & 2 ~ He even wants to hear and share in our joy!)

Did you see those 12 reasons for praise in the 5 verses of Psalm 100 before?  I have read this Psalm hundreds of times in the 35 years since I became a Christian, but I don’t think I saw all of the reasons for praise until I started looking for them.

Isn’t it amazing that our God is so good that we can find 12 reasons for praising Him in only 5 short verses of scripture.  He is amazing!  THAT’S WHY WE PRAISE HIM!

The Lord is great, He is Sovereign, He is personal, He is a loving and caring Shepherd, He claims us as His own, He wants us to know Him, He is a God of truth, He is merciful (FULL of mercy), He is a giver, He is generous (desiring our joy!), He has our best interests at heart, and He is powerful.

He is God.

Knowing the 5 verses of Psalm 100 can be a lifelong reminder of the reasons to praise Him. There’s something else in these verses as well. We not only have the “why” of praise in Psalm 100. We also have the “how”.

So, how are we to praise the Lord?

* with a joyful noise (v. 1)
* with glad hearts as we serve Him (v. 2)
* with singing (v. 2)
* with the reverent recognition of who He is (v. 3)
* with thanksgiving (v. 4)
* with blessing for His name (v. 4)
* with knowledge that praise is the password to His presence (v. 4)
* with the desire to go deeper in seeking and knowing Him (also v. 4, drawing near as we come into his courts)

Finally, we find that remembering the how and why of praise found in Psalm 100 can help us to live in fellowship with the Lord as we continually look for more reasons to give Him praise and seek to live our lives for His glory.  

There are many benefits to living a life of praise, because praise is good medicine!

Unlike prescriptions for medication, praise has no harmful side effects. The benefits of praise are spiritual, emotional, mental, and even physical.

Here are 10 of the benefits of praise:

* Praise focuses our attention on the eternal and causes us to let go of our earthly concerns for a while.

* Praise reminds us why we love and trust our great God. It reminds us who He is.

* Praise helps us to remember that God’s salvation goes beyond meeting our greatest need (for Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior) to meeting our everyday needs through all of the ways that God shepherds and cares for us and helps us to grow in grace.

* When we praise the Lord specifically for all that He is and all that He has done, we are confronted with God’s sovereignty, Jesus’ glory as the only begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit’s comfort and guidance.

* Praise brings peace to our hearts because it reminds us that He is our peace.

* Praise makes us glad as we remember that He is the joy of every longing heart.

* Praise gives us eternal perspective and helps us hold on to faith in God, even when things don’t seem to make sense.

* Praise allows God to meet us where we are and minister to us at the point of our deepest need.

* Praise takes our eyes off of ourselves and focuses them on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

* Praise allows us to give something of eternal value to the Giver of all things. We can give something of eternal value only because God invested Himself in us when He chose to die for us. He can redeem us through the power of His great love and make us into eternal beings who will see His glory and become worthy of His presence through the shedding of His own blood. He gives value to our weakest effort. His strength is perfected in our human weakness. As we praise Him, we recognize and affirm His infinite worth and supreme glory as the God of all creation. He, in turn, lifts us up with the knowledge that He cares for us and values our lives, our souls, and even our human efforts to live in such a way that our lives bring Him glory.

With results like that, this prescription for praise should be administered daily!

See the information below about our most often read blog post, 31 Days of Praise, to give you a full month of praise scripture devotions.

Below, you will find a memorization helper photo for Psalm 100.  Print it in whatever size works for you, and use it as a memory aide to help you learn the 5 incredible verses of Psalm 100.

Use this scripture memory photo for the 5 verses of Psalm 100 to read it aloud each day and memorize this passage

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31  DAYS OF PRAISE  

This blog post originally was (and still is) the praise devotion for day 17 in our “31 Days of Praise” blog post (see link below).

Most of the devotions consist of a praise verse, a truth about praise drawn from that verse, and a short, devotional paragraph with thoughts about praise inspired by that verse.  However, this particular devotion is longer…quite a bit longer.  It is the only long-ish devotion in “31 Days of Praise” because there’s just so much in Psalm 100.  The more I looked, the more I found, and the more there was to share about this passage of scripture and our great God.  With this much to share, I decided after I published the 31 devotions that this particular devotion needed to become a separate post as well.  Psalm 100 is even more special to me now that the Lord has revealed so much about it and about Himself through it.  We hope that this post will be a blessing.  Don’t forget to check out “31 Days of Praise” for 30 short devotions about praise + one that is a little long-ish.

Here’s the link to   31 Days of Praise

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This post was written by Cynthia A. Boyd.
This post can be reprinted in an unpaid church publication as long as the author’s name and blog URL are included.  It does need to be printed in its entirety.  We stand by each post on our blog, so we require that no edits be made.  Even the tiniest edit might alter the meaning or original intent of a post.  For a paid publication, obtaining permission is required.

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