Happy Thanksgiving. I couldn’t let today pass without posting this song. You may listen to an old recording here. Click here for a PDF lead-sheet.
Let the whole earth ring
With a shout of great joy
To the Lord, the King of Kings!
We serve Him gladly and obey His commandments,
And we sing glad songs
When we enter His presence.
We come into His gates with thanksgiving
And enter His courts with praise;
We thank Him for who He is
And praise His holy name.
Let the whole earth ring
With a shout of great joy
To the Lord, the King of Kings!
We serve Him gladly and obey His commandments,
And we sing glad songs
When we enter His presence.
We know He’s our Creator;
We didn’t make ourselves.
We’re sheep, and He’s our Shepherd.
We’re servants; He’s our Lord.
Let the whole earth ring
With a shout of great joy
To the Lord, the King of Kings!
We serve Him gladly and obey His commandments,
And we sing glad songs
When we enter His presence.
The Lord has been so good to us;
His love has never failed.
We know His promises will keep coming true
In all the years to come.
Let the whole earth ring
With a shout of great joy
To the Lord, the King of Kings!
We serve Him gladly and obey His commandments,
And we sing glad songs
When we enter His presence.
About This song:
On a long ago Thanksgiving Day, November 20, 1980, I sat down on the floor of my living room and surrounded myself with different translations of the Bible. All of them were open to Psalm 100.
These are several of the ones I used:
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
New International Version (NIV)
1 Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Worship the Lord with joy;
come before him with happy songs!
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, we are his flock.
4 Enter the Temple gates with thanksgiving;
go into its courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise him.
5 The Lord is good;
his love is eternal
and his faithfulness lasts forever.
Good News Translation (GNT)
Why was I so interested in Psalm 100 that day? Because it best expressed what Thanksgiving meant to me, and I felt inspired to turn those words into a new song, while remaining as true to the meaning of the Scripture as possible.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you won’t be surprised that I took a few liberties with the words. Did you notice the one major change I made? I switched what should have been the first and second stanzas. I don’t remember why.
I never let Thanksgiving pass without singing this song many times. And now that I’m involved in an almost-weekly nursing home ministry, the folks at the Ashland Nursing and Rehab Center can count on hearing me do it for them each year. Thankfully COVID_19 didn’t prevent that from happening this year.
No matter where or when this Psalm is sung–or how the words are arranged–may the joy it expresses reflect your feelings of thanksgiving for the countless blessings God provides day in and day out.
What are you thankful for today? Please share a comment.
I write Christian novels as well as songs. The two most recent ones are shown below and their pictures are links to the Amazon pages. The eighteen-book picture is a link to my Amazon Author Page.
I’ll be back again next Wednesday. Please join me then. Better still, sign up to receive these weekly posts by email.
Best regards,
Roger
Links you might be interested in:
As I Come Singing. . . 
