Psalm 115:12-18

Here you see:

  • A conviction about God (13): It is that He will bless all His people (12, 13). It is His nature to bless. It is almost certainly a conviction about who He is based on experience; but especially it is built on His Word. The Scriptures reveal the kind of God He is. (Notice that within this conviction about God, there is a conviction about His great riches and power: 16a). Whenever we pray, let’s be clear in our thinking that we are coming to a perfect Father who loves to give good gifts to His children (Luke 11:1-13.) ‘’And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him’’ (Hebrews 11:6.) Believing, expectant prayer is born out of a certain conviction about God.
  • A prayer to God (based on the conviction about Him: 14, 15): It is a prayer that He will bless. It’s an appeal to God based on His revealed nature. Specifically it is a prayer for the blessing of ‘’increase’’. The psalmist would have been thinking about the blessing of a larger family. It is not difficult for us, however, to think in terms of an increase in the Kingdom of God. We want to see Christ’s church grow in numbers.
  • A conviction about praise (17, 18): The conviction is that now is the time to do it! While we have life and breath in our bodies we should ‘’extol the LORD’’ (18). We should do ‘’now’’ what we will be doing ‘’for evermore’’.

Prayer: Lord we ask for your blessing of increase.