2 Samuel 7:18-29: How to Respond to God's Greatness

2 Samuel 7:22 "Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears."

If we can agree on one thing, it is that God does some pretty amazing stuff. I bet that we could all give hundreds of stories of how God has showed up in our lives and done something great. However, so often we take for granted what God has done for us. We pray that God might bless us, and he does so in a miraculous way, but the stream stops there. What if we had an attitude of praise and thanksgiving after every blessing the Lord gives to us? What if we had a constant attitude of gratitude to our Lord?

Well, David sure did. After he received the Davidic Covenant from the Lord, David uttered a song of praise that is better than any song you or I could ever proclaim. In this song, he thanked God for his character, his covanant, and many other things. I truly believe that one could spend a great while just trying to analyze all that David thanked the Lord for in his prayer. However, through even a glimpse at this prayer, we can see a few applications on how we ought to respond to God's greatness.

Firstly, David responded to God's greatness by realizing his own insufficiency. "Who am I?" asked David to God. You see, David did not believe that he deserved what the Lord was giving to him. Rather, he had a firm awareness on how much he didn't deserve it, and thus praised the Lord even more because of his grace.

Secondly, David responded to God's greatness by realizing the power of God. David proclaims that this great and awesome covenant "was a small thing" to the Lord. You see, there is nothing that is hard for God to do. He is a strong God who holds all of the power of the universe in his hands.

Lastly, David responded to God's greatness by realizing the uniqueness of the Lord. "For there is no one like you, and there is no God besides you," David proclaims. In response to the blessings God gives us, we must realize that there is no one like him. Who else would grant mercy on a sinner? Who else would bless those who had persecuted him? Who else would be merciful, gracious, and loving without end? Who else would love those who are stained with sin? Surely there is no one like our God!

So, how is your praise-response doing? Do you "worship God in the splender of his holiness," or do you take his blessings and run? Dear child of God, praise him! Praise him in the streets and in your house and in your work and in your everywhere. The Lord is great and worthy to be praised, thus we must praise him. Amen!