Psalm 146 (NIV)
Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord, my soul
I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—he remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord.
Devotion
“I will praise the Lord all my Life. I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.” What better way to enact Sunday Morning’s message than to sing praise to God and be reminded of his glory on Monday Morning and throughout the week. I often find myself humming tunes of last week’s hymns throughout the days ahead. The subtle reminders of the hymn’s text carries me to live with God’s grace. May you during the Lenten season use song to praise God and be reminded of his messages. As we go about loving and serving God each morning that “Gilds the Skies,” God “Abides With Us” throughout these “Forty Days and Forty Nights” ahead, reminding us that the “Strife is O’er, the Battle Done, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!”
Prayer
Dear Lord, grant that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may show forth in our lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
John Nothaft