My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;

The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

And let us exalt His name together.

I want to pick up on two words found in the ‘New King James’ translation of this psalm:

  1. Boasting: I am reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:31: “Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.” “ (‘New Living Translation’).I also recall Romans 15:17,18b, where he writes: “Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done – by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God.” There is a natural, sinful human tendency to want to boast about our achievements and accomplishments. But the Biblical perspective is that there is no room for such boasting. A hymn contains these lines: ‘boasting excluded, pride I abase; I’m only a sinner saved by grace’;
  2. Magnifying: To “magnify the Lord” does not mean to make Him bigger than He is. That is impossible. But perhaps we begin to see Him bigger and bigger as we praise Him. How much we need this enlarged perspective.

‘The Bible NEVER flatters its heroes. It tells us the truth about each one of them in order that against the background of human breakdown and failure we may magnify the grace of God and recognise that it is the delight of the Spirit of God to work upon the platform of human impossibilities.’ Dr. Alan Redpath.

PRAYER: Lord God, may we know who you are, and who we are, and as a result walk humbly before you all our days.