CNC Daily Psalms

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 117  Listen to Psalm 117

Psalms 113 -118 are known in Hebrew as the ‘Hallel psalms’ and are sung together at Passover. This is because they all finish with that word: a translation of the Hebrew Hallelu Yah! simply meaning: “Praise the Lord!” Psalm 117, the shortest psalm, and the shortest chapter in the Bible, is probably a chorus.

All people will ultimately praise God (Philippians 2:9-11), some joyfully, others reluctantly. This psalm gives us a great reason to do it now, in this life.

These few words tell us so much about what life is all about. The main thing is to have a close and open relationship with God. We should always ‘praise’ and ‘extol’ the Lord (verse 1) because of his great ‘love’ for us and for his ‘faithfulness’ towards us (verse 2). The psalmist gives us a great summary of God’s attitude to us, and what our attitude to him should be.

Praise you Jesus, for giving your life for me and pouring your love into my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Praise you, Lord, that because of your love for me, I have found the true meaning for my life. Hallelujah!

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 116  Listen to Psalm 116

In this psalm we see the writer’s close relationship with God. He speaks about how God heard his cry for mercy (verse 1), how when he was in great need, God saved him (verse 6), how the Lord had been good to him (verse 7) and delivered him from death (verse 8).

God has been so good to him that he ends full of thanksgiving for both his past and his future (verses 15-16); and builds to a great crescendo of praise, (verses 17-19). We see that his relationship with God was his top priority and that God heard and answered his prayers. He gives thanks in the ‘presence of all his people’ (verses 14 & 19).

Let’s stay close to God and be sure to celebrate his goodness with each other!

I will give thanks to you Lord for all your goodness in my life. Thank you that you have rescued and delivered in so many amazing ways. Hallelujah!

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 115  Listen to Psalm 115

This psalm asks us to make sure we honour the Lord and give him the glory, not ourselves, when he does wonderful things. People may say to us ‘where is your God?’ It is difficult to explain when we cannot see him, but we know he exists, because we see him working wonders and answering our prayers.

In contrast the writer almost mocks the idols of the nations. They are man made and unresponsive and are not even able to do what their makers could – speak, see, hear, smell, feel or walk. Why would men worship things so obviously below them? It has been said that we become like the things we worship. If we worship Jesus we will become more like him. But many of us can end up worshipping other things today – money, work, celebrities, clothes, sport... Do we give too much time and effort to things when we should be spending time with God? When Jesus was tempted his final response to his tempter was: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’ (Matthew 4:10).

When we trust in God, he will be our help and shield and will bless us. He has given us the earth (verse 16) but we should use its resources for the good of humanity and not waste and destroy it. At the end the psalmist encourages us to praise the Lord – now and for evermore. Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord!

Dear Lord, please forgive us when we get distracted by things of this world and help us to love you with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 114  Listen to Psalm 114

Jesus and his disciples probably sang this psalm at the Last Supper. It is the second song of the Passover ceremony, which brings to remembrance and celebrates the central act of redemption under the old covenant of God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land (Matthew 26:30). We are under the New Covenant now and it is Jesus’ work on the cross and empty tomb, which is the act of redemption that we should constantly remember and celebrate.

Nature is personified (verses 3-6) and is described responding to God’s presence in fear and reverence, obeying his will. The Exodus is described in its completion; not only escape from Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21), but also entrance to the Promised Land by the dried riverbed of the Jordan (Joshua 3:13-17). Under the New Covenant we are brought out of our sins by new birth into the promised inheritance of eternal life.

The psalm finishes by telling the whole earth to honour the God of Jacob, God of all creation and to remember how he showed compassion bringing forth water for his thirsty people from a rock sustaining and refreshing them, just as Jesus does for us today (Exodus  17:3-7).

Dear Lord, Thank you that you have rescued us from our sin and we are travelling with you towards our Promised Land. Help us to share your plan of redemption with others we have contact with.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 113  Listen to Psalm 113

This hymn of praise marks the beginning of the Jewish Hallel (Psalm 113-118). It was most likely sung by Jesus and his disciples as they celebrated the Passover meal (Matthew 26:30). In it we praise God’s high majesty - Transcendence (verse 5) beyond our understanding but also his intervention in the lives of the marginalised poor, needy and barren on earth - Imminence (verses 6--9). “He picks up the poor from out of the dirt and seats them among the honoured guests at his final banquet. He gives childless couples a family, gives them joy as the parents of children” (The Message). Such are the upside-down values of God’s Kingdom.

I remember the chorus, “From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the name of the Lord will be praised” (verse 3). Remember his blessings for ever. I thank God too that for those of us who commit our lives to Jesus Christ, God becomes our Father who knows and calls us by name (John 10:3).

Jesus sang this psalm on the night before he was betrayed, beaten and crucified. As we face more threats and restrictions, debilitating illness and even the risk of death from Covid-19 infection, let us also praise God for who he is and what he has done. Thanks and praise set one free from fear and panic. Jehovah Jireh - my God will provide.

Lord, thank you for who you are. Help me to trust in your Name and sure and certain promises. May I be a servant to others.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 112  Listen to Psalm 112

Here is a description of a man or woman who fears the Lord and lives according to God’s teaching in the Old and New Testament. For me that person seems out of reach. Perhaps someone to emulate!

The children are robust (verse 2), the home is blessed financially. However, he has insatiable generosity and gives much away, lavishing gifts on the poor (verses 5, 9). Even in the darkest times, sunlight breaks through. His reputation is solid, and he is known for just decisions loaded with mercy for others. He is unfazed by rumour and gossip as his conscience is clear before God (verse 7). His heart is secure and without fear (verse 8). His enemies are frustrated and upset. They bluster away but end up speechless and impotent (verse 10).

Who can be like this? I see Joseph and Daniel in the Old Testament. They foreshadow the character and person of Jesus Christ, who was full of grace and truth. Paul speaks of us being changed into the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16-18). Nicky Gumbel finds all the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the man described here (Galatians 5:22-23). Look out for these and recognise some of them in yourself as signs of God at work in you. See that in Christ your heart can be secure (verse 8). In Him is your significance and self-worth.

Thank you, Lord, that I am a work in progress by your Holy Spirit. Help me to thank and trust in you. Help me to see whom I am in Christ Jesus and whose I am.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 111  Listen to Psalm 111

Today, let’s feed our spirits with truth. This psalm needs to be shouted from the roof tops. But if that’s not possible, find somewhere that you can read this aloud, with a loud Amen at the end!

There is a lot of human wisdom on display at the moment, some helpful some not so. Advice given and changed, promises made then undone. We need to be bringing Godly wisdom to people, so that we can bring life instead of disappointment, light into confusion, hope to the hopeless.

Verse 10 tells us that the starting point is the “fear of the Lord.” This fear isn’t a cringing hide away “miserable worm that I am” fear, or a “smite me, oh mighty smiter” fear because we are and deserve this. But it is coming into the presence of a Holy God who is faithful and just and has provided redemption for us, not just in the historical past, but by the cross of Jesus. This enables us to come to know the very heart of God, who is compassionate and gracious.

When we enter this place in “Holy fear” we experience grace and compassion. When we are filled up with this we can begin in to share God’s wisdom with our friends, country and the world.

Lord Jesus, I need to know again your love, compassion and grace, fill me up so I can be poured out for you.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 110  Listen to Psalm 110

This Psalm of David is one of the most quoted psalms in the New Testament, you might remember hearing or singing one of its verses.  It’s worth reading it aloud to yourself! It presents us with a view of the coming Messiah, who is both a priest and king.

We might have an idea of the job of a King or Queen ruling and reigning over their kingdom, but we might not have such a clear picture of what a priest's job is. In the Old Testament, a priest was a God appointed servant who, as well as administrative jobs in the temple, was the mediator between God and the people, making animal sacrifices to atone for sin, so that forgiveness could be given.

In verse 4, David refers to the priest king Melchizedek, who was a picture of the great high priest and king to come, our Lord Jesus who mediated once and for all between God and his people. (Lots more about this in Hebrews.) Because of his sacrifice, we as believers are now called to be a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), we are to be the link, the mediator between God our father and people, this is both our challenge and our calling.

Who can we help on their journey to God today? How can we help people to come to meet Jesus by the things that we do, or say, or pray?

Heavenly Father, help me to walk as a priest today. May I be sensitive to your Spirit and help my friends, neighbours, family, colleagues, to know more of you.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 109:16-31  Listen to Psalm 109:16-31

The last verse yesterday (verse 15) seems very harsh, but David sees that the persecutor’s failure to practice kindness to the poor and needy (verse 16) is a breach of covenant directions (Leviticus 19:18). He then continues in the same vein, telling God of the wrongs of his accuser and calling on him to exact judgement.

Verses 21–25 describe David’s complete dependence on the Lord, where he may have been suffering from a serious affliction (verses 23-24) which makes him a further object of scorn, but his faith compels him to appeal to God for salvation (verse 26-29). What would we do (or have done) when faced with overwhelming disasters in our lives? David says that he will rejoice (verse 28) and he praises God for his salvation in the last two verses. It is interesting that he starts and finishes the psalm with praise to the Lord (verses 1, 30).

What are we to think about such harsh statements against enemies and how can we, as Christians, reconcile these words with the New Testament command to “love your enemies”? Martin Luther actually said, “When the wicked persecute the Gospel this strikes at God and his cause. We are not to bless them when they do this.” Even Jesus in Matthew 10:14-15 warned, in quite harsh terms, of the consequences of rejecting the gospel!

Lord, help us to love our enemies, not that they be blessed in the rejection of your gospel, but only that they may be richly blessed in repentance and acceptance of Jesus as their Saviour.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 109:1-15  Listen to Psalm 109:1-15

This psalm is sometimes called one of the ‘cursing’ psalms and is a prayer for God to judge the writer in the face of false accusations. As David writes he is speaking as a prophet and probably his enemies are not just personal to him, but enemies of God too. They may be individuals united under a leader whose animosity towards David has drawn them in also to persecute him. But in verse 6, David asks for his enemy to be confronted by an accuser. The enemy was no doubt seeking to bring about David’s death - “another take his place of leadership” (verse 8). He may have held some official position and was perhaps plotting a coup. In verses 6-15, David appeals for judicial redress, that the Lord will deal with them in accordance with their malicious intent against him, matching the crime to the punishment.

However, as Christians we should leave the judgement to God alone as we have the benefit of Christ’s teaching, who tells us to pray for the good of our enemies and not for their ruin.

Lord, help us to pray for those who do us wrong. May we trust you to work out your purposes for our lives so that we hold no malice or resentment against anyone.