I Will Sing Praises To My God With My Dying Breath

August 28, 2017

I Will Sing Praises To My God With My Dying Breath

He gives justice to the oppressed

    and food to the hungry.

The Lord frees the prisoners.

    The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down.

    The Lord loves the godly.

Psalm 146:7-8

When you read Psalm 146, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? I think of Jesus.

I see a great similarity between verses 7-9 and Jesus’ affirmation of his call to ministry in Luke 4:18-19,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,

    that the blind will see,

that the oppressed will be set free,

and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

This similarity is also present in Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 35: 5-6,

And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind

    and unplug the ears of the deaf.

The lame will leap like a deer,

    and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!

Psalm 146 can also be heard in Jesus’ words to John the Baptist’s disciples,

“the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:5).

The Messiah not only cares for his people, he is also caring for all creation: “He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them” (Psalm 146:6). This verse carries forward to the Apostle Paul’s affirmation of the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1:16b-17,

“Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else,

    and he holds all creation together.”

Can there be any wonder why the psalmist opens and closes this psalm with, “Praise the Lord!” and vows to,

“Let all that I am praise the Lord.

    I will praise the Lord as long as I live.

    I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath”

Remembering Jesus’ words at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan seems appropriate here,

“Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same”” (Luke 10:37).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.