Beatitudes #8—Able to Praise

Fortunate are those who live in your temple and praise you continually! Fortunate are those who are strongly inclined to go worship you! Psalm 84:4–5

O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, today we celebrate the privilege of praise. While we cannot all be tasked with the duty of constantly acknowledging your consistently superior work on our behalf as the temple singers were, we rejoice that we can join them occasionally. Ordinary people once longed to live on the temple grounds in order to be near you. But because you have opened a door directly to your presence, and guaranteed that in the resurrection we will no longer be ordinary, our hearts also long to dwell in your house for all of eternity. We heartily desire to experience your delightfulness and be satisfied by the goodness of your grace. We are glad that you chose us and are bringing us closer to living with you forever. Seeing how you righteously answered Israel’s prayers, delivering them through fear-inspiring deeds, we take refuge in you as well. Even more fearsomely, on the cross, you overcame the punishment for sin so you can forgive us. Thus you have become the hope of all the ends of the earth. You walked through the valley of the shadow of death before us. So now we fear no evil that other humans can do to us. Together we celebrate that you pursue us with extravagant kindness in order to do good for us in this life as well as the next. So we look forward to dwelling in your house forever. We rejoice that you have made known to us the best way to live so that we can fully enjoy the extraordinary pleasure of being in your presence.