“I will
extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day will I bless You; and I will praise
Your name forever and ever. Great is the
LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm
145:1-3)
When we
think of the word praise, we typically think of being in a church with hands
lifted or eyes closed singing a worship song.
But, the word praise means “to express approval or admiration of
someone, to applaud, to honor, to glorify, to exalt”. And, praise is something that we should
continually be doing. It is expressing
our admiration and offering our applause and honor to God. Not only our thanks, but our honor and admiration. As the scripture says, we should do this
every day for He is great and greatly to be praised.
How do we do
this every day?
When we
speak of Him, we speak about His goodness.
We speak about His love. We speak
about His salvation and the grace that He has freely given us. We speak about the wonder of His creation and
how He protects us and provides for us.
We speak highly and favorably of Him.
Yes, speak
about the things He has done for you.
But be sure that your admiration for Him goes beyond just thankfulness
for blessings or miracles in your life.
There will be times, as we have said, that you don’t feel anything. There will be days when you don’t see His
hand working, or you pray and are not sure your prayers are being answered, or
even heard. Even in those times, you
must still have an admiration and love and praise for God.
Praise is
also a weapon of spiritual warfare. At
some point in your Christian walk, you will face opposition. Whether it be from old friends, family,
people who want to talk about you, or something you used to like being involved
in, there will be “warfare” or a battle in your mind, perhaps in your
conversation, or even in your lifestyle between the old and new person of
you. Praise is one of the best ways to
defeat all the enemies in your life.
Regardless of whether you have had every prayer answered or not, you
should be able to stand up and talk about how good God is! In the Old Testament, when the children of
Israel went to battle, they would put their singers and dancers first. In front of all the fighters and weapons,
when they marched to battle, they marched singing and praising God… and they
hadn’t even started fighting yet!
Because, praising God regardless of whether you have an answer to your
prayers or not means you are really praising.
It means your love for Him is not based on what He does or does not do…
it is based on your admiration, respect, and honor of Him. And, that is real, true praise!
Make every
day a day you sing songs of rejoicing and speak highly of your God!
Read John
Chapter 12.
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