Recommended Resource: “The Songs of Jesus”

Recommended Resource: “The Songs of Jesus”

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Recommended Resource: “The Songs of Jesus” by Tim and Kathy Keller




I can’t recommend enough the book “The Songs of Jesus” by Tim and Kathy Keller. For myself, it has helped shaped my prayers, my affections, and drawn me closer to God.  The book is structured as a 365 day devotional which takes you through all the Psalms roughly 5-7 verses per day. There is a short reflection on the verses as well as a prayer that is shaped by the content of the Psalm. I strongly encourage you to pick up this resource and do it with your family, with your spouse, or for your own time with the Lord. 

You can find out more information about this book at http://www.timothykeller.com/books/the-songs-of-jesus

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:
The psalms lead us to do what the psalmists do—to commit ourselves to God through pledges and promises, to depend on God through petition and expressions of acceptance, to seek comfort in God through lament and complaint, to find mercy from God through confession and repentance, to gain new wisdom and perspective from God through meditation, remembrance, and reflection.
 
The psalms also help us see God—God not as we wish or hope him to be but as he actually reveals himself. The descriptions of God in the Psalter are rich beyond human invention. He is more holy, more wise, more fearsome, more tender and loving than we would ever imagine him to be. The psalms fire our imaginations into new realms yet guide them toward the God who actually exists. This brings a reality to our prayer lives that nothing else can. “Left to ourselves, we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand. But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that he speaks to us. . . .  What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God.”7
Most of all the psalms, read in light of the entire Bible, bring us to Jesus. The psalms were Jesus’s songbook. The hymn that Jesus sang at the Passover meal (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26) would have been the Great Hallel, Psalms 113–118. Indeed, there is every reason to assume that Jesus would have sung all the psalms, constantly, throughout his life, so that he knew them by heart. It is the book of the Bible that he quotes more than any other. But the psalms were not simply sung by Jesus; they also are about him, as we will see throughout this volume. The psalms are, then, indeed the songs of Jesus.


Brandon Hochstetler

Brandon Hochstetler has been the Worship Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, TX since August 2013. Brandon believes that worshipping God is so much more than just the instruments, singing, lights, and sound. Worship is simply about praising the name of Jesus and coming before him humbly.

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