June 2, 2025 - Psalm 92:1,2 - "Praise and Thanks to the LORD"

Psalm 92:1,2

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High:

To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,"

It is a good thing—yea, the best and most blessed occupation of the redeemed soul—to give thanks unto the LORD and to sing praises unto the Name of the Most High. The psalmist in Psalm 92 opens with this very thought: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High” (v.1). But what is the reason for such praise? What compels the believer, day by day, morning and night, to declare the LORD’s lovingkindness and faithfulness?

The answer lies in the sovereign and saving grace of God in Christ Jesus. This grace, purposed from eternity, accomplished at the cross, and revealed effectually by the Spirit, is the sole reason we rise in the morning with songs of mercy on our lips and lay down at night resting in the assurance of God's faithfulness in Christ. The lovingkindness spoken of here is not merely a general kindness, but that covenant mercy—chesed—which flows from God’s eternal love for His elect in Christ. It is the very grace that chose us before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), redeemed us by Christ’s blood (Hebrews 9:12), and called us with a holy calling (2 Timothy 1:9).

“To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning.” Each morning that the believer awakens is not a product of chance, but a testimony of God's preserving mercy. Jeremiah wrote, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23). Who is it that preserves the child of God through the night watches and raises him again to behold the light of another day? It is Christ Himself, our Life, our Righteousness, our Hope. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… he restoreth my soul” (Psalm 23:1,3).

When we consider that all our spiritual blessings—redemption, justification, sanctification, regeneration, and glorification—flow from the eternal wellspring of God's sovereign grace, how can we not begin the day by declaring His lovingkindness? The believer knows that had God not loved him with an everlasting love and drawn him with lovingkindness (Jeremiah 31:3), he would still be lost, dead in trespasses and sins, without Christ, and without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

Herein is the wonder of God's saving grace in Christ: God loved us not because of foreseen merit or good, but according to His own will and purpose in Christ. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5). That is the lovingkindness we declare in the morning. And in the evening, when the shadows fall and the day closes, we recount His faithfulness—not our faithfulness to Him, but His faithfulness to us. “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

When we consider what it means to shew forth His lovingkindness in the morning, this is not merely a private emotion or an inward feeling, but a declaration, and a testimony. It is to speak, sing, pray, and live in such a way that the mercies of God in Christ are made known—first to our own hearts, and then to those around us. The heart enlivened by sovereign grace cannot remain silent. “I believed, therefore have I spoken” (Psalm 116:10). What do we speak? We declare the mercy that met us when we were dead in sins. We proclaim the love that lifted us out of the miry clay and set our feet upon a Rock. That Rock is Christ.

Morning by morning, we are reminded that we do not stand in our own strength. Our salvation is not conditioned on our works, our will, or our faithfulness. It is built entirely on the immovable Foundation of God’s eternal purpose and Christ’s finished work. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9). This is the lovingkindness we rejoice in when the sun rises.

But the day is not without its trials. The morning may begin with peace, but the world soon presses in. Temptations come. We may falter. We may even fall. Yet when the night returns and we lay our heads down again, we do so with confidence in His faithfulness. “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). What God has begun in us by His sovereign grace, He will finish. “Being confident of this very thing,” Paul writes, “that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

So we declare His lovingkindness in the morning—for it is by grace we are kept. And we declare His faithfulness every night—for it is by grace we are preserved. Grace began the work. Grace sustains the work. And grace will complete it in glory. The LORD has done it all. Christ has triumphed. And we, His blood-bought people, rest in that perfect work.

Let us, then, live each day between these twin pillars of praise: the lovingkindness of God revealed in the cross of Christ, and the faithfulness of God who will never forsake His own. This is the song of the believer in time—and it will be the song of the redeemed throughout eternity.

“Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee” (Psalm 65:4). The LORD Jesus is THE MAN that God the Father chose, and caused to approach unto Him, but as the Representative of elect sinners that the Father gave Him. They are caused to approach unto God, justified by the work of Christ, the Mediator between God and men. We come because we were chosen in Christ, and drawn by His Spirit. We believe because we were called. We endure because we are preserved. All is of grace. All is in Christ. And all redounds to the glory of God alone (Romans 8:28-34).