I will give You thanks with all my heart

Psalm 138 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Thanksgiving for the Lord’s Favor. A Psalm of David.

I will give You thanks with all my heart;
I will sing praises to You before the gods.
² I will bow down toward Your holy temple
And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.
³ On the day I called, You answered me;
You made me bold with strength in my soul.

⁴ All the kings of the earth will give thanks to You, O Lord,
When they have heard the words of Your mouth.
⁵ And they will sing of the ways of the Lord,
For great is the glory of the Lord.
⁶ For though the Lord is exalted,
Yet He regards the lowly,
But the haughty He knows from afar.

⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;
You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.
⁸ The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.

The psalmist says:  I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to You before the gods. I will bow down toward Your holy temple
And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name. On the day I called, You answered me; You made me bold with strength in my soul.  In Matthew 7:7-8 Jesus says:  Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  We can have confidence that on the day we ask, on the day we call out to God, He will answer. We have confidence because in John 19:30, when He was on the cross, Jesus cried out:  “It is finished!” Whatever we need then has already been fully accomplished in the finished work of the cross. We need not worry whether God will do it. It is already done. His word; every promise that He has made is magnified in the finished work of the cross. In Isaiah 55:10-11 God says:  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”  Numbers 23:19 says:  God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?  Like the psalmist, I will give You thanks with all my heart.

The psalmist says:  All the kings of the earth will give thanks to You, O Lord,
When they have heard the words of Your mouth. And they will sing of the ways of the Lord, For great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly, But the haughty He knows from afar.  If only all the kings of the earth and all the people of the earth would listen and hear the words of the Lord’s mouth. If they would hear, they would give thanks. Yet, even those who have never heard or read God’s word are excused from worshipping Him because they too have seen His glory. Romans 1:18-23 says:  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.  Great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly, But the haughty He knows from afar.

The psalmist says:  Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, And Your right hand will save me. The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.  In Deuteronomy 31:6 God says:  "Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."   Isaiah 64:8 says: But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.  Ephesians 2:10 says:  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.  We are the work of God’s hands. He will never forsake us, if we walk in the good works God prepared for us. John 3:16 says:  God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  If God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die for our sins, surely He will not forsake us. The Lord will accomplish what concerns us, In truth, He already has accomplished it. Again, in John 19:30, when Jesus was on the cross, sacrificing Himself for our sins, He said:  “It is finished!”  The Lord has accomplished all that concerns us through the finished work of the cross. Romans 8:35-39 says:  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to You before the gods. I will bow down toward Your holy temple And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth.  Amen.