A Call to Worship

O LORD my God, thou art very great – Psalm 104:1Here is worship in a nutshell. The greatness of God, leading us to talk to God, about how great God is.But what leads this psalmist to worship in this way? Perhaps surprisingly, what leads the psalmist to worship is not a sudden flow of overwhelming emotion. Rather it is personal determination. This verse actually begins with: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great…" The psalmist first recognizes the need to worship and determines to do so—“Bless the Lord, O my soul”—and it is from that personal determination that worship then comes: “O Lord my God, thou art very great...” And the psalmist goes on from there, throughout the rest of the psalm, to stir himself up to worship by thinking about how great God is.In our feelings-driven culture, where we so quickly fall in love and fall out of love, it may sound strange to say worship comes when we discipline ourselves to worship. But the fact is that worship, and love, are commands in Scripture, are required of us no matter who we are (Matthew 4:10; Psalm 95:6).Here in Psalm 104, the psalmist begins with “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Talking to himself, as it were, leads him to talk to God. The call to worship is from the psalmist, to himself. Like the psalmist, we ought to begin every prayer with a personal determination to worship God. “God is great—always, no matter how I am feeling at the moment—and so I will go to God regularly and worship him.”We will not always feel like praying, or like worshiping. But because God is always great, it is always appropriate to say to yourself, “Bless the Lord, O my soul”, and then turn to the Lord in direct and personal prayer and say, “O Lord my God, you are very great.”