“O
Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, You who
set Your glory above the heavens!
Out
of the mouths of babes and infants You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the
avenger.
When
I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the
stars which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of
him And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a
little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and
honor.
You
have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have
put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen—Even the beasts
of the field, The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea That pass
through the paths of the seas.
O
Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth! -Psalm
8:1-9 (NKJV).
Read
Psalm 8 until its majestic language and infinite truths permeate your
thinking. As a young Christian, my Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Mert
Shuler Collins, led her junior Sunday School class to memorize Psalm
8. Since those early days as a Christian, Psalm 8, and likewise
Psalm 23, have been favorite psalms to bring to mind, to repeat and
to meditate upon.
What
lessons can we learn from this Psalm? David, the author of this
Psalm, stood amazed that the great God of Creation would pay
attention to frail man. That God in His majesty and glory would
condescend to consider man is proof of man’s dignity above all
other created beings, and that we are made in the image of God. Man
can experience the majesty and power of God and bow in worship to
Him. We can have fellowship with God and learn from Him what we are
to do in this great universe God created.
In
studying Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on Psalm 8, I was
intrigued at his alliterative outline of the Psalm that helped me to
put David’s poem into concise and memorable terms:
-
God Created Us (vv. 1-2, 5a). God the transcendent One is known throughout the earth.
-
God Cares for Us (vv. 3-4). He made the world and all in it for our enjoyment.
-
God Crowns Us (vv. 5-8) God has dominion over us; we have dominion over His creation.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes: “To summarize: God the Father created us to be
kings, but the disobedience of our first parents robbed us of our
crowns. God the Son came to earth and redeemed us to be kings
(Revelation 1:5-6), and today the Holy Spirit of God can empower us
to ‘reign in life by one, Jesus Christ’ (Romans 5:17). When you
crown Jesus Christ Lord of all, you are a sovereign and not a slave,
a victor and not a victim.” (The Wiersbe Bible Commentar Old
Testament. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2007, p. 883).
Prayer:
We acclaim with David: “O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your
name in all the earth!” The New International Version uses the
word ‘majestic’ where the King James uses ‘excellent.’ In
the words and music of Michael W. Smith, we lift our voices in a song
of praise: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the
earth. O Lord, we praise Your name. O Lord, we magnify Your name:
Prince of Peace, mighty God; O Lord God Almighty!” Amen!
-Ethelene Dyer Jones 01.10.2016
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