Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1) – praising the Lord and speaking psalms to one another!

Praise the Lord, we have started the video-training on the Crystallization Study of the Psalms (1)! We watched the first message entitled, the Central Thought of the Book of Psalms – and it was so rich! It will take us weeks to digest and our whole life to experience and enjoy the riches of Christ as presented in the book of the Psalms!

One of the first matters that touched me in this message(and this is NOT a review of the whole message…) is that we need to be recovered to a proper praising the Lord. Praise the Lord! The Psalms are filled with praises to the Lord for what He is, what He has done, and what He is doing today!

But even more – we need to see that the object of our praise is not God in a general way and not even God for what He has done for us. We simply need to praise the Lord for CHRIST, for what Christ is and has accomplished, and for what God is in Christ to us!

Actually, as seen in Psalm 22, Christ in His resurrection preaches and declares the name of the Father to His many brothers and He sings praises in the midst of the congregation!

Praising the Lord is the Highest Work carried out by God’s Children

This is what Christ is doing today – from His resurrection and all the way through eternity, Christ praises God and He leads us in praising God! We are now just following Christ to sing praises to the Father!

Also, in our Christian walk the first thing we need to do is open our mouth and sing praises to God! Col. 3:16 tells us that in the new man we let the word dwell in us richly that we may admonish one another with psalms – saints, let’s sing psalms one to one another!

In Eph. 5 it says that we shouldn’t be drunk with wine but filled in spirit by speaking to one another in psalms, teachings, revelation, etc. We need to learn to compose and share psalms to one another, admonish and encourage one another with psalms.

When we come together, as revealed in 1 Cor. 14, each one has a psalm! Come to the meeting with a Psalm! We need to be filled with the Spirit and saturated with the Word of God so that we may overflow with psalms and praises. Praising is a big part of the psalms and should be a major part of our Christian life!

Praising the Lord is the highest work carried out by God’s children (W. Nee). We can say that the highest expression of the saints’ spiritual life is their praise to God. Give a ringing shout, and praise the Lord! David prayed to God three times a day, but he praised God seven times!

In the Psalms, we can touch the deepest feelings and the highest and greatest praises. We need to see the significance of praise right a the beginning of our Christian life, and we need to exercise daily to praise the Lord! Practice, exercise, and learn to praise the Lord!

In Psa. 30 the psalmist praises God in the morning with a ringing shout. Praise the Lord while being alone, when you’re at the meeting, when you’re up, and when you’re having problems – learn to PRAISE THE LORD!

How and Why Should We Praise the Lord?

Why and how should we praise the Lord? Praise the Lord for what Christ is to us! Praise God not only for His kindness, mercy, love, grace, power – but praise God for Christ! Christ is the subject of our praise and, as we see in the Psalms, the highest praise is praising Christ Himself on what He is and what He does!

Christ is the center (the centrality) and the content (the universality) of the book of Psalms and of the Bible – even of God’s economy! Praise the Lord not only because of what He did to help you yesterday – but praise Christ for His unsearchable riches! Here are some aspects of Christ in some of the Psalms:

• in Psalms 2 Christ is God’s anointed One in God’s economy;
• in Psalms 8 Christ is the excellent One as the incarnated and exalted One;
• in Psalms 16 we see Christ in His human living, death, resurrection, ascension, satisfying God’s desire and fulfilling God’s good pleasure;
• in Psalms 22 we see Christ in His redeeming death and in His church-producing resurrection;
• in Psalms 23 we see the pneumatic Christ shepherding us in His heavenly ministry;
• in Psalms 24 we see Christ as the king of glory!
• in Psalms 45 we see Christ as the king and the church as the queen;
• in Psalms 48 we see Christ in God’s move – and the psalm ends with: AWESOME!
• in Psalms 60 we see Christ in His suffering;
• in Psalms 40 we see Christ as the factor to enact God’s New Testament economy;
• in Psalms 72 we see the reigning Christ to recover the whole earth!

Wow, what a Christ! And there are so many more other aspects of Christ in the Psalms! I’m looking forward to the next message – and to the group study time to get into the messages, digest them, pray over them, study them, and – hopefully – be constituted with this rich Christ!

Praise the Lord! Lord, continue to keep us open to Your speaking! Open vessels to be filled with Your fresh speaking!