Is God egotistical?
A quick thought on praise for the Lord's Day
“From the rising of the sun to its going down
the LORD’s name is to be praised.”
Psalm 113:3
The psalmist here declares that praise to the name of God should be our response every day of our existence. One of the reasons that praise is reasonable is this simple fact: praise is commanded by God.
This is an interesting thought. Of course, knowing who God is and what He has done will cause us naturally to praise Him each day, and should be enough to invoke our praise. However, I believe there is another foundational aspect of praise that should be recognized and understood. If any other person commanded us to praise them, we would find that rather strange and downright egotistical! Yet God commands praise, and we would never say that He is egotistical. This makes sense only when we see that God is after the joy that His people can experience in Him.
David declares in Psalm 16:11, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore,” and in another place, “Delight yourself also in the LORD” (Psalm 37:4). God’s heart is that we would enjoy Him forever! So here’s a truth to consider: To praise God is not just an expression of our enjoyment, but the act of praising God is to enjoy God.
C. S. Lewis writes in his book Reflections on the Psalms, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”1 When God commands us to praise, what He desires for us is to experience the fullness of joy that comes from knowing Him. He desires us to praise Him alone because there’s nothing and no one greater or higher than Him! It follows, then, that our joy is at its highest when we praise what is greatest.
Has your enjoyment of God been lacking? What I believe will allow you to find ultimate pleasure in God is if you commit to making praise a habit—that from the rising of the sun, until it goes down, you would praise the name of Jesus.
“Come thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.”
Robert Robinson
“Reflections on the Psalms.” Reflections on the Psalms, by C. S. Lewis, HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2017, p. 81.
This post is adapted from my devotional book, This Reasonable Response.