PSALMS: Real Help for Real People
*There are some links below and we may receive a small commission for purchases through these links at no extra cost to you. We do not share anything unless we’ve personally used and benefited from it.*
What fuels your worship?
Whenever my relationship with the Lord feels stale, when my heart is feeling hard in a weary season, or maybe even when my heart has grown too self-reliant in a good season, it’s easy to neglect my time in the Word.
But the Psalms remind me repeatedly that my time in the Word is not a box to check or a spiritual bar to measure up to. That weight is heavy and quickly discourages me from opening my Bible, especially when I feel like I’ve fallen off the train.
The truth is much better than I often believe. Time in God’s Word is not an admission price I must pay to experience His presence. Rather, His Word is an open doorway into worship, responding to the reality of His presence moment by moment.
“We step into the worship of God through and according to the Word of God.”
Every summer at camp, we go through a bible study with our team, and this year we’re going through PSALMS: Real Help for Real Life by Ray Ortlund. I love the Psalms. They are the biblical songbook for God’s people and have prayers, praises, and laments for every possible season of life. But this study reminded me again that worship always starts with the Word of God because the Word is how God reveals Himself to me. It’s how I can constantly discover and respond more deeply to who He is and live in light of the goodness of the gospel.
Psalm 1 opens the entire book with an invitation to real blessedness:
“But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on His Law he meditates day and night.”
I love these thoughts from Ray Ortlund in the first week of the study:
“It’s not as though we’re worshipping God when we’re singing, and then the sermon is something else. Christians worship God by singing the Bible, praying the Bible, reading the Bible, preaching the Bible, and hearing the Bible. Psalm 1 puts the gospel at the forefront of biblical worship because the biblical message alone can lift us to God in worship that is pleasing to Him. Worship is the human response to the presence of the Lord. And since the Lord is ever present, worship is a whole-life practice.”
Ray Ortlund
Whatever state or season you find yourself in, friend, I hope this encourages you to say yes to the Lord’s constant invitation to come to Him through the gift of His Word.
If you’re looking for a helpful and doable way to get into your Bible these last few weeks of summer, we’d highly recommend this study!
