Daily Devotional For Wednesday July 8, 2026

Good morning Southside and our daily devotion for today comes from one of my favorite psalms. I remember as a child memorizing it in the KJV in VBS. So, let’s look at Psalm 100:

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. (2) Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing. (3) Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. (4) Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. (5) For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations” (KJV).

This psalm is all about thanking the Lord as we come to Him in worship. This psalm is solely about thanksgiving as its description gives at the beginning of it. It begins with the first command to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” For those of us in the church today, we should be excited and enthusiastic about coming to worship just like the Israelites were when they came to either their local synagogue or the Temple to worship God. 

Think of it this way: with all God the Father has done for us through God the Son, how can we come to worship with anything but joyful praise? We need to leave our funeral faces at home on Sundays and come with our joyful praising faith face to worship on Sundays. This psalm reminds us to serve the Lord with a second command –  gladness – gladness folks, not sadness! Have you ever seen Christians who look like they have been sucking on lemons most of their Christian lives? It ain’t pretty nor convincing to a lost world.

Many Christians today come to church with an apathetic attitude. They come judging everything from the lights, the sound, the music, the sermon and its length and the other people serving. Corporate worship is not an option when it is commanded by God as we see in Hebrews 10:25. Those who say,”I can worship God at home or in nature,” are only partially right. You will never find a growing and maturing Christian who refuses to come to corporate worship. 

Then there is a third command: come before the Lord with joyful singing. This has nothing to do with the style of music: hymns or contemporary. It has to do with the attitude of one’s heart. Notice in this psalm we are not only commanded to sing joyfully, and to serve with gladness, we are commanded to do together with other believers. This is why the majority of our joyful singing needs to be corporate, not just with solo singers. 

A fourth commandment from this psalm is that we are to know the Lord. The Hebrew word is [יָדַע, de-u]. It refers to an intimate knowledge of someone, not a general awareness or understanding of them. We do not worship God from our feelings, but from our knowledge of Him through Scripture.  This means that we worship God from our intelligence of what we have learned about Him from His Word, the Bible. This psalm reminds us two truths we can know about God. He is the only real God and He is the Creator of all there is. 

Since we were made by God and for God, He has the right to our service with gladness and our praise with passionate joy. We were made for God’s glory and that means our worship should glorify Him, not ourselves. Over the last few centuries, evolution has been very successful at removing God as the Creator of all that is. If God is not our Creator, then we have no real reason to worship Him. Since we are sheep of His pasture, then who better to praise God than the sheep who have been blessed by the Good Shepherd?

Verse 4 gives us a fourth commandment: we as God’s people are to come to worship with the right attitudes. Verse 4 reminds us that when the Israelites entered the Temple to worship, there were blood sacrifices of lambs and goats. This was to be a visible reminder they had received God’s mercy and forgiveness of their sins. Charles Spurgeon wrote this about verse 4: “So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers of thanks” (Source: Charles Spurgeon, Treasury of David, p. 234). The second half of verse 4 reminds us to come to worship praising God, thanking God and blessing His name. Why – Verse 5 gives us the reasons.

Our God is a good God. He is good to all. Our God is kind, cordial, merciful and  benevolent. He is tenderhearted and sympathetic. His plans for us are good. His love for us is personal, real and intimate. Old Testament scholar Philip Ryken writes this: “The cross has brought salvation to the world. If God brought the greatest good out of the greatest evil, He can bring good out of what seems to be evil in your own life. It is all part of God’s good plan” (Source: Philip Ryken, The Heart of the Cross, p. 131).

Meaning since God has done so much for us that He did not have to do, how in the world can we come to worship God with an apathetic attitude or a half-hearted attitude or a lackadaisical attitude? We shouldn’t and if we do, we are basically spitting in the Lord’s face and telling Him to keep His goodness to Himself. This psalm reminds us that we can be thankful to God because He is faithful to keep His word to His people. God never lies and has never told a lie. We need to remind ourselves that it is God Himself who has opened the door (gates) for our entrance to Him with an attitude of gratitude. 

Reflection Assignment: What attitude do you come to worship the Lord with each week? Is it joyful? Is it with energy, enthusiasm and gladness? Do you come for yourself or for the Lord? Is your singing pathetic or praising? When the Word is preached, are you asking the Lord, “Lord, what is the lesson You want me to learn and apply to my life today?” If God were to grade you on your attitude and actions in worship, what grade do you think He would give you and why?

Scripture To Meditate On: Psalms 96:1-2, “Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! (2) Sing to the LORD; praise His name. Each day proclaim the good news that He saves” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Lord, I promise that from now on I am all in for You in worship. No more holding back or wondering what others might think. I am going to praise You joyfully, thankfully and with gladness. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly