CTK Blog
From East and West, North and South
God’s love reaches into every land. Turn in every direction: go north, south, east, and west; go as far as humanly possible and you will find there people that God loves. Psalm 107 invites us to consider God’s great love and to praise him for it.
Why would God listen to my prayers?
Often, when we pray, we feel as though God is not listening. We’ve come to believe that we don’t deserve his attention because of what we’ve done. Or, we imagine he must have a lot on his plate, running the universe and all, so we really shouldn’t bother him with our troubles. But, the picture the Bible paints of prayer is that God the Father hears our prayers just like his Son Jesus. It is as if we speak with Jesus’s voice when we pray.
O Give Thanks to the Lord - Psalm 107
Over the next three months at Christ the King, we will let Psalm 107 direct our prayers personally and corporately, drawing our attention to God’s goodness and steadfast love. In verse 1, the psalm bursts onto the page with exuberant and contagious thankfulness to the Lord: “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”
How to Read the Psalms
How do we read the Psalms? The answer begins with reading the Psalms along three horizons of interpretation. That is to say, we read the Psalms and consider how they connect at three levels: with David, with Jesus Christ, and with ourselves.
Why Read the Psalms?
Since their composition, the Psalms have always been near to the heart of God’s people. Ancient Israel worshipped with the psalter as its hymnal. Our Lord Jesus himself would have known and sung the Psalms throughout his life on earth. The early church incorporated the singing of Psalms into their worship (Ephesians 5:29; Colossians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 14:26), and they used the Psalms to explain the truth of who Jesus is (for example, Hebrews 7:17).