Prayer 2 – God’s Person as Prayer’s Foundation

The aim of this devotional study is to reflect on the Person of God as a foundation for all faith filled effective prayer.

Text

Psalm 145: 1-21

1. I will extol You, O God, My King; And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2. Every day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.
4. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.
5. I will meditate on the glorious splendour of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works.
6. Men shall speak on the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness.
7. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness.
8. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.
9. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
10. All your works shall praise You, O Lord, and your saints shall bless You.
11. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power,
12. To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His Kingdom
13. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14. The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.
15. The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season.
16. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17. The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works.
18. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him in truth.
19. He will fulfil the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them.
20. The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.
21. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh shall bless His holy name forever and ever.

Observations and Reflections

David communicates with God in this Psalm about His greatness in various ways. Notice how he stresses the fact that prayer and praise is a deliberate and ongoing action, something to be done with your voice primarily!

1. List the things that the author does or promises to do concerning God. [hint verses 1,2,4,5,6,7,10,11,12,21]
2. List the things that the author contributes to God. (Take one verse at a time. For example: Verse 1 God is King, Verse 3, God is great etc.)

Personal reflection & Prayer

1. Consider your own praise life.
   1. Direct Praise: When and how do spend time actively praising God for who He is?
   2. Indirect Praise: When and how do you purposely tell other people about what He does for you and for others?
2. If you set your heart and mind to do this daily, how do you think it will affect your prayer life?
3. Read this Psalm 145 as a personalized prayer of praise to God.  Take you time and insert personal examples from your own life.
4. Choose two other Psalms that you can do this with during the rest of the week to get you started. [Consider Psalm 92, Psalm 103, Psalm 144, etc]