“Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker, let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.
For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.
Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.
May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands,
To inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,
To bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron,
To carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints.
Praise the Lord.”
Psalm 149 New International Version
This is such a beautiful Psalm and I don’t know if I will be able to express in words all the beauty that it holds in itself. For me this is such a beautiful combination of Worship, Intercession, Psalm that shows that there is no difference between those two.
Worship is Prayer! Prayer is Worship!
To worship is to Pray! To Pray is to Worship!
The Psalm starts with this simple exhortation to worship the Lord. I can almost hear the excitement, the shout of joy in the voice of the psalmist encouraging us to sing a new song. But what does it mean to sing a new song? I believe that it is a song that comes out of the overflow of our hearts towards God as a respond to His beauty, character and His marvelous love towards us just as Psalm 45 says: “My heart overflows with a beautiful thought! I will recite a lovely poem to the King, for my tongue is like the pen of a skillful poet.”
And this new song is being sang in the assembly of the saints not only when we have our own personal time with God. It is a song that only YOU can offer and give to God out of the overflow of your heart. It isn’t the newest Hillsong, Jesus Culture, Matt Redman song, it is YOUR song, coming from your heart singing straight to the heart of God in the middle of corporate Church worship while the music is being played. The Worship has never been intended to be one man, one band performance but it is a place of freedom, place of encountering God and place of expressing your love towards Him with your own words, songs, melodies…
Rejoicing in our Maker speaks to me about the love and emotions of God towards us while creating us, fashioning us into His image. It talks about the intimacy that we are called to have with our Maker.
Being glad in our King it speaks to me about God’s faithful and good leadership over/in our lives .
But the heart of this Psalm is found in verse 4 where it says: “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.” The reason why we worship, why we praise Him, why we rejoice in Him, why we are encouraged to sing a new song it comes out of this place of revelation that He simply delights in us!!! This is His heart towards you and me, this is His everlasting character and position towards us that will never change. Just so there will be no misunderstanding this doesn’t mean that our sinful lifestyle is ok, NO, this is words of encouragement and hope that should lead us in holy obedience to God and His Word. Being crowned with salvation or as the NKJV says He beautify us with salvation, which just speaks about God’s value and commitment towards us.
Both Worship & Prayer flow out of this revelation of God delighting in us!
The second part of the Psalm starting from verse 6 where it says: May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands,speaks to me about Spiritual warfare, Intercessory Prayer combined with worship, prayer that is focused on declaring over the nations who God is, His sovereignty, His power, His authority, His eternal plans…partnering with God’s heart by declaring His Word…read Psalm 2 or I love Isaiah 14:26-27 “I have a plan for the whole earth, for my mighty power reaches throughout the world. The Lord Almighty has spoken – who can change His plans? When His hand moves, who can stop Him?” New Living Translation
This is the glory of all his saints…another translation says This is the honor… this glory, this honor is nothing else but being able to approach God in the simplicity of Worship, having intimate relationship with Him and out of that place partnering with His heart through Prayer in seeing His Kingdom and His will being establish on earth as it is in Heaven.
PRAISE THE LORD!!!