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1 Sing for joy to God our strength;
    shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
2 Begin the music, strike the timbrel,
    play the melodious harp and lyre.

3 Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon,
    and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival;
4 this is a decree for Israel,
    an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 When God went out against Egypt,
    he established it as a statute for Joseph.

I heard an unknown voice say:

6 “I removed the burden from their shoulders;
    their hands were set free from the basket.
7 In your distress you called and I rescued you,
    I answered you out of a thundercloud;
    I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—
    if you would only listen to me, Israel!
9 You shall have no foreign god among you;
    you shall not worship any god other than me.
10 I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

11 “But my people would not listen to me;
    Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
    to follow their own devices.

13 “If my people would only listen to me,
    if Israel would only follow my ways,
14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies
    and turn my hand against their foes!
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him,
    and their punishment would last forever.
16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
    with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” (Psalm 81)

During this time, praising God isn’t always the first thing we think about.  But if we’re honest with ourselves, even in good time, praising God isn’t always the first thing on our minds.  But the Psalmist tells us to “Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob!” (v. 1) The Psalmist tells us to praise God, not because life is great and everything is perfect.  The Psalmist tells us to praise God because of what God has already done.  For the Israelites, God acted in bringing them out of Egypt and out of slavery.  “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you” (v. 6-7a).  For us, God acted by sending His only Son to die on the cross for our sins. 

When life gets difficult, when things become uncertain, when things do not go the way we hope or expect, it is easy for us to forget what Christ has done for us.  Even when things are good and life is going well, it can be easy to forget what Christ has done for us.  And that is why the Psalmist tells us to keep praising God at the forefront of our lives.  Because when we praise God, we are reminded of why we worship Him.  When we worship God, we are reminded of what Christ has done for us, that Christ paid the ultimate price for us because He loves us.  So no matter what happens in our lives, no matter what is going on around us, we can be confident in the fact that Christ loves us and is with us through all of it.

No matter what happens, we can find hope in the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

No disease, no illness, no pandemic, not even death can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  There is no better time than right now to stop and praise the living God, our God, our Lord and Saviour.