Draw near to God by Praying the Psalms

I hope you’ll be joining us as we draw near to God by praying the Psalms and meditating on His word. I have two ways for you to be encouraged:

1. Through the Praying the Psalms video series here on www.saralueddeke.com/videos
2. Through my free 6 week long Facebook Live series “Psalms on the Sevens” at www.facebook.com/saralueddeke. 🙂 We are gathering each weekday at 7am EST and 7pm EST through July 31, 2020 but you can catch the videos at your convenience for a limited time! We pray though the psalm, take the day to meditate, and then gather again each evening to share and encourage each other.

In the Psalms, we see instruction, poetry and prophesy through the lens of people who were trusting in God, despite overwhelming circumstances. I believe the Holy Spirit is inviting us to be encouraged together by exploring these Divinely inspired texts.

Praying the scriptures is so powerful because we are literally praying back to God, the words He inspired in man. Yet these books of poems and songs are filled with treasures about God’s character, what happens in the life of a believer as they trust in Him, and prophetic scriptures pointing to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Meditating on His word enables us to sit with the text, and allow it to permeate our hearts and spirits. We also have Holy Spirit inside us to help bring more illumination to the words. From this posture, as you’ll read about in Psalm One, we become fruit bearing, as we are fed by His river of life.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Words of Paul the Apostle to Timothy – 2Tim3:16-17 NASB

To get prepared for this series, I’ll be searching for resources to give me more understanding about this beautifully complex and yet simple book of the bible. And I’ll be sharing the resources I find with you, so that you can draw near to God by praying the Psalms at your own pace.

Three amazing free resources on the Psalms I’d love to share with you first are:

1. DesiringGod.org: Here you will find both short and long teachings to anchor your heart deep in God’s truth, and our identity in Christ as told in the Psalms.
2. Shaped by God: Thinking and feeling in tune with God. This small book is downloadable for free, and was written by Pastor John Piper.
3. Biblicaltraining.org: If you’re wanting to go even further, they have a free seminary level course available that teaches you “how” to read the Psalms, so that you can better understand “what” the Psalms teach. (I was immensely blessed and learned a ton just from the introduction! I’m digging through class 2- which is on Psalm One.

The Psalms do not just awaken the affections of the heart; they put the expression of those affections in the foreground. They feature the emotional experience of the psalmist intentionally against the backdrop of divine truth.

Pastor John Piper, DesiringGod.org

So, just so you know what to expect, each day (couple of days) I will be doing a video reading of a Psalm, sharing an encouragement and closing with a prayer for the Lord to reveal His Real Love to us in greater measure.

If you’re ready to get started click here to watch our first Psalms video! And be sure to subscribe for our email list to be notified of our latest encouraging blogposts and videos for you to enjoy.

xoxo-Sara