To Know Him by Name
Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul!
Psalm 146:1
The last five of the 150 Psalms begin and end with the same expression: Hallelu-Yah. These five Psalms are called a hallel, a section for which the theme is praise. The Hebrew word hallelu means “praise,” and the Hebrew word Yah is the personal name for God, revealed to Moses. Since these praise psalms conclude the end of the book of worship, it is fair to say that worship should always end in adoration and praise. Is this the way your quiet time ends? It should be.
Psalm 146 suggests that worship should end in praise because Christians have the privilege of knowing God personally; the personal name for God occurs eleven times in the ten verses of this psalm. The psalmist exults almost to the point of monotony in his repetitive use of God’s personal name, Yahweh. The composer knows the God of all gods by his personal name, and finding himself full of praise, he speaks that name again and again.
Do you have a love affair with the name of the Lord Jesus? Do you find his name tumbling out of your mouth without even your conscious thought? Our lives should be lives of worship in which we cannot keep ourselves from speaking the name of Jesus.
—Dennis Kinslaw
This Day with the Master
I heard a story about an old rabbi who, as he lied on his deathbed, testified that, for as long as he could remember, he’d offered the same prayer every morning, and that God always answered. That prayer, he confessed, was “God, show me something worthy of wonder and awe today. “Every day, He graced my eyes with something worthy of wonder and awe!” He recalled seeing a baby smile at its mother; an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand on the beach; an eagle soaring in the skies; a rainbow forming after a storm; the warming flames of a campfire; the genius of a sidewalk artist, on and on he went, “all occasions,” he said, “to proclaim Hallelujah!” Fitting these Hallelu Psalms conclude a book of wonder and awe with Hallelujahs. May you and I begin each day with a similar plea; may we walk through our days with eyes looking for praise-worthy sights; and may we end our days proclaiming hallelujahs! —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics