GREAT IS OUR LORD

Psalm 147:5 (NIV) — Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

Great is our Lord.

None can describe his majesty, or reckon up the number of his excellencies.

Great is our Lord and great is His Power.

Doing as he wills, and willing to do mighty deeds.

His acts reveal something of his power, but the total of his power is hidden, for all things are possible with God. His understanding is infinite.

He has no limits in existence, in power, and in knowledge, as these three phrases plainly teach us.

This is he who so tenderly nurses sick souls, and waits to be gracious to sinful people.

Let him be worshipped because of each of his attributes.

God’s greatness and goodness, in both providence and redemption, motivates praise and trust.

God’s goodness has now been supremely manifested in Christ (Rom. 8:32).

Romans 8:32 (NIV) — 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Gods omniscience and omnipotence are partly a ground for praise, partly an encouragement to trust him.

He who knows each separate star will not lose sight of one single Israelite.

He who knows each separate star will not lose sigh of any one of us

While the Lord counts the stars (Is 40:26), humanity is unable to measure the Lord’s understanding.

Isaiah 40:26 (NIV) — 26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

We can also praise God for his work of creation

God knows his creation intimately. We know there are billions of stars. He knows their exact number!

We have named many stars. He has named each and every one!

What a testimony to his intimate and pervasive knowledge! What a testimony to his power!

“How great is our Lord! His power is absolute!

Everything about God is great

Everything about God is absolute

If he knows the impersonal stars by name, how much more does he know those created in his personal image by name.

He knows every one of us intimately and completely

Our names have been recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev 21:27).

Revelation 21:27 (NIV) — 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

God’s knowledge of and power over his creation in general and our lives in particular evoke from deep within us the exclamation “Hallelujah!”

Finally, we can praise God for his support (Psalms 147:6).

In a similar vein, according to Psalms 147:6, God both supports the afflicted and humbles the wicked.

Psalm 147:6 (NIV) — 6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

In Psalms 146:9 God both supports the defenceless and frustrates the wicked.

Psalm 146:9 (NIV) — 9 The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The idea seems to be that the Lord supports those who live in keeping with his ways by eliminating those who would disrupt their well-being.

Because of his compassionate support, we exclaim, “Hallelujah!”

Exodus 14:31 (NIV) — 31 And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Job 5:9–10 (NIV) — 9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. 10 He provides rain for the earth; he sends water on the countryside.

Job 38:26–28 (NIV) — 26 to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?

Psalm 48:1 (NIV) — 1 Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.

Psalm 145:3 (NIV) — 3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

Isaiah 1:3 (NIV) — 3 The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”

Isaiah 40:26 (NIV) — 26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 40:28 (NIV) — 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

Nahum 1:3 (NIV) — 3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.