This day
This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).
Psalm 118 begins
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His steadfast love endures forever! (v. 1, ESV)
It is good to pause at the outset of each day to give thanks to God for His goodness and His steadfast love. We look back, like David in Psalm 23:6, to trace His goodness and mercy. Then we look forward in the assurance of His steadfast love to what lies ahead. Our times are in His hand, and they are marked in days. There is a wonder in each day that begins with every new morning. The beginning of each day is so important. It is the right time to come into the presence of God and seek His blessing and His mind for what lies before us. Time is such a precious thing, and we need the Lord’s grace to fulfil its potential.
Psalm 118: 24 helps us in this endeavour. First, we recognise each day is given by God: “This is the day the Lord has made.” It is a gift. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights (James 1:17). God describes creation in days, days which He used to bring His perfect work into being. We are given the ability to use our days to glorify God, and this experience extends across the smallest and most significant aspects of our lives. David knew this. By learning to shepherd sheep under God’s hand, he learned to shepherd a nation under God’s hand. William Booth, who founded the Salvation Army, began his working life in a pawnshop. He committed himself to devote time each day in God’s presence, before he went to work. In his work, he learned about poverty, and God called him to take the Gospel to the poorest people in our land.
“We will rejoice and be glad in it.” God rejoiced over His creation: “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). God brought things into being by His word. But God stooped down to create Adam, forming him from the dust of the ground. There are intimacy and complexity in Adam’s creation, who was made to have fellowship with God. He stooped down to plant a garden and set Adam to keep it, rejoice in it, share it with Eve, and walk with God in it. God has not changed. He is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). He still gives each day: He gives us purpose, we share a fellowship of life, and He enables us to walk with Him.
But the real character of our verse comes from the previous two verses,
The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing;
It is marvellous in our eyes.
The Psalmist prophetically looks forward to the day when the whole of creation will own that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11). That day should characterise every one of our days, as God gives us the privilege of living our lives, “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us” (Titus 2:13-14).
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God; I will extol you.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures for ever! (Psalm 118:28-29)
