May 25: Psalm 100
A psalm of worship
Long meter 88.88 Old 100th (Doxology), p. 99
All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with mirth; His praise forth tell; come ye before Him and rejoice.
Know that the Lord is God indeed; without our aid He did us make.
We are His flock, He doth us feed, and for His sheep He doth us take.
O enter then His gates with praise; within His courts your thanks proclaim;
With grateful hearts your voices raise, to bless and magnify His name.
For why? The Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood, and shall from age to age endure.
Psalm 100 is a call to all the earth to know and praise the covenant God of faithful love. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.”
When the people of God, “the sheep of His pasture,” assemble to rejoice in His presence and enter His courts with praise, there is always an evangelical summons implied in the action. We believers are priests; we stand in, as it were, on behalf of the whole world. No one is to be excluded from our prayers, because no one is excluded from the heart of Christ. Even as He chose us “out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,” He appointed us intercessors on their behalf; that is, He made us “priests to our God” (Rev. 5:9-10). (Reardon, p. 198)