Praise
Praise is mentioned about 596 times in
the Bible. I’m just going to use Psalm 66.
Shout
with joy to God, all the earth!
Sing
the glory of his name;
make
his praise glorious!
Say
to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
So
great is your power
that
your enemies cringe before you.
All
the earth bows down to you;
they
sing praise to you,
they
sing praise to your name.” Selah Psalm 66:1-4
So we are told to (a) shout with joy,
(b) sing the glory of His name, (c) make His praise glorious, (d) sing praise.
David
and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the
LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals. 2 Samuel 6:5
They were celebrating getting the ark of
God back to the city of David.
So when did we stop giving God the
praise He deserves? Isn't He doing wonderful things in our lives, in the lives
of our family and friends that we should be celebrating?
Shouldn't we be celebrating His
magnificence? His glory? His faithfulness? His forgiveness? His healing? His
protection? And the list can go on and on.
In my opinion not only has ‘going to
church’ become a habit, a religion; but so has the time of praise. We finally
arrive at church after arguing with our flesh or spouse or children….that did
not want to get up, it’s the only day they get to sleep…..or we are still
thinking on the work we left on our desk Friday….or maybe we are dwelling on
some gossip we heard and can’t wait to see if so and so shows up today. You name
it, our minds; our desires are elsewhere so we go in and go through the
motions. We sing the songs but are we really noticing the words and the
meanings? Are we really singing these songs to God? Can you close your eyes and
feel His presence and if you hear Him to tell you to lift your arms in worship
to Him, will you do it or are you concerned about someone seeing you and ‘gossiping’
about you?
I know we are to do all things to
glorify God, but when you read about how they praised Him in the Bible; it
seems we have lost exuberance.
God has done so much for me that I want
to make sure I’m giving Him all the glory every day of my life and when I come
together with the body of believers I worship with – I want to be able to put
our praises together and welcome His presence in our midst.
One day I was asking God why it felt
heavy, like no one was really singing to Him, it was ‘habit’. And I heard Him
ask me, ‘What do you want?’ And I told Him (while praise was still going on I
stopped to write this down so I’d remember it).
I want to go into a place of worship and if even one ounce of flesh is
on me…..it falls off! There is so much passion for God and for His people that
nothing else can come in – we leave our pride, selfishness, fear, sickness,
gossip, etc at the door.
Then I heard the Lord clearly say to me,
‘If we don’t come really seeking Him we squelch the Spirit. If we can’t find
and rest in His joy we are losing the Light. We are to praise Him with all our
might, to know what we are singing and why, it is beautiful to Him.
I believe if you want to see a move of
God’s power, we need to know what we are singing, why we are singing it and
make sure we focus on giving God the praise.
(c)Has Breath Publishing LLC
