Day one – week one

June 27, 2009

Stepping Up – The Psalms of Ascent
Day one – week one

Worship on the Way

The three goals for this Bible study:
1. To dramatically change our outlook on daily life
2. To be raised to a higher plain of worship and service by God
3. To move to the next step in our personal journey with God, even if we have to press through the thickest forest to get to it.

Beth would like for us to get into the habit of putting our faces to the floor on a daily basis in worship to our Lord. The idea of this is to demonstrate reverence and a surrendered attitude. It has a tremendous advantage to setting the tone for the day. The reason for this is because “the way up is down” in God’s economy.
Humility is the natural posture of anyone who grasps the greatness of God, according to Beth. This is a prayer example that Beth gives us:
“Lord, I thank You again this morning that You are still God upon the throne of all creation. You are holy. Mighty beyond comprehension. So worthy of my praise and the out pouring of my life’s energies. Today I gladly give myself to You. I am convinced that You are always for me. Obedience to You will always mean Your very best for me. I’m so grateful that I can come boldly and without shame before Your throne because I pray all these things in Jesus’ name.”

This prayer will probably take no more than a minute. It is not about the time, it is about your heart.
1 Peter 5: 6
“Humble yourselves; therefore, under God’s mighty hand so that He may lift you up in due time.”
In order to grow up in Christ, we must learn to get down in reverence to God. Sometimes it takes miles of a journey to know why we are on a certain road with God.
Take a moment to determine how you could benefit from a study like this.
About how long has your journey with God been thus far in your life?
How did it begin?
Based on all you have experienced with God, what excites you most about the next adventure you are going to have with Him?
What scares you the most about your next adventure with Him?


The Psalms of Ascent are made up of Psalms 120 – 134. That will be the basis of this study. However, here are some facts about the Psalms as a whole.
1. There are 150 Psalms
2. 73 of the Psalms were written by David
3. 12 are attributed to Asaph, a Levite musician David appointed to lead worship with singers under Asaph’s tutelage.
4. 10 are attributed to the sons of Korah who were also temple singers. The psalms designated by the names of Asaph or the sons of Korah could also refer to a hymnbook from which they commonly sang.
5. 2 are believed to be written by Solomon
6. 1 was written by Moses
7. 1 was written by another singer named Heman
8. 1 was written by a singer named Ethan
9. The remainder are anonymous. Many of the undesignated songs probably fell from the pen of David. The entire book of 150 Psalms is associated with him for good reason. Surely he more than any other person in Scripture is used of God to teach us how to materialize our worship.

The Psalms were divided into five books which are believed to correspond to the five books of Moses:
Book One: Psalms 1 – 41 (Genesis)
Book Two: Psalms 42 – 72 (Exodus)
Book Three: Psalms 73 – 89 (Leviticus)
Book Four: Psalms 90 – 106 (Numbers)
Book Five: Psalms 107 – 150 (Deuteronomy)

What do all of the Psalms have in common? Praise

The Psalms are a showing of true emotion where the Psalmist is able to be honest with God about his feelings. Therefore, we can say that honesty with God is consistent with worship.