Just think…some day we will join in a celebration of praise around the throne of God. We will gather together…a untold throng of humanity from all parts of the world… speaking every language known…yet all together with a common bond. And in a loud voice our praises will rise as one expression of thankfulness and gratitude to our Heavenly Father and to His Son.
Tag: Praise be to God
Isaiah 26:8 ” Yes, Lord, walking in the way of Your laws, we wait for You; Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.”
The path we follow as Believers is narrow and fraught with potholes…some placed there by the enemy, others we’ve dug ourselves. But no matter how difficult the course, it is the only way to righteousness and life. And as we traverse this path, we will soon discover God’s plan and purpose for us is embedded not in the end result, but in the long and arduous process to get there. For it becomes a daily decision of placing of our hope in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, not in ourselves…of matching our heart’s desires to His not ours. And as we journey along this way, we are reminded to exalt Him in Psalm 145:2 which says, “Every day I will praise You and extol Your Name for ever and ever.”
Psalm 96: 10-13 ” Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.’ The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing before the Lord, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His truth.”
The Lord reigns over all, and one day He will return to judge the world with justice. (Acts 17:31) And it tells us here that heaven and earth, the sea and fields… even the trees will rejoice at His coming. But they all may be singing already, for in Psalm 65:9 it says, “You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly.” And because of God’s wonderful care for the earth, starting in verse 13 of Chapter 65, it says the grasslands of the desert overflow, the hills are clothed with gladness, the meadows are covered with flocks, the valleys are mantled with grain, and they all shout for joy and sing. So just imagine, every crash of waves on the shore, every rustle of leaves or ripe grain in the field could be the earth’s way of praising God…we just don’t know the song.
Psalm 96: 4-6 ” For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and glory are in His sanctuary.”
“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.” (Psalm 95:3) I added the emphasis to make us all think for a moment of just how glorious and awesome God is. He is deserving of our praise and worship… He is God (capitol G)… not all the “little” gods we allow in our life. For when we put our trust in idols (little gods), we’re putting our confidence in worthless and vain man-made objects…not the God that created the heavens and earth. He is the one and only great God above all, and is so worthy of our praise.
Exodus 15:2 ” The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.”
Something happens to us as we learn to trust the Lord. Our reliance on our-self diminishes as our dependence on Him increases. Our old self, with all its baggage, slowly falls away as we learn to trust and have confidence in Him and His plan for our life. And as we’re changed from the inside out, true joy, happiness, and hope fill us to overflowing…and we too can then join in this song of praise from Moses and Miriam.
Psalm 146:2 ” I will praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.”
When we praise the Lord with a heart full of thankfulness…we rise. We rise above our circumstances, we rise above the current pain, and we rise above our negative emotions. But when we just complain to the Lord…we remain. We remain stagnant in the mess around us, and we remain unhappy…wallowing in self-pity. Now that’s not saying we can’t ever complain to the Lord…Jeremiah and Habakkuk did for a few…but in the end they turned their protests into praise. That’s because they looked beyond their griping and grumbling to the bigger picture of gratitude. When we praise, we rise…but when we complain, we remain.
Romans 11:36 ” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul, rephrases this idea in I Corinthians 8:6, when he writes, “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” Even though our feeble human minds have a difficult, almost impossible chance of understanding the sheer magnitude of this Scripture…let’s try. Everything has a starting point. But with God, He’s not only the starting point, He existed before the starting point. And so out of Him and only by Him all things were created…both in heaven and here on earth. And the last time I checked, “all” meant everything! So everything you see, hear, feel, smell, or taste came from your Heavenly Father. Why then, wouldn’t we want to give Him honor, praise, and adoration for what He’s done for us?
Isaiah 63:7 ” I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us – yes, the many good things He has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and many kindnesses.”
This verse starts out with the words, “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord”. The Hebrew word for “tell” here has two definitions – the first being to remember or reflect upon, the second being to declare or proclaim. When we stop and reflect upon just how much the Lord has done for us…how many good things He has provided…how merciful and kind He has been towards us – how can we not want to share with others this love? Ephesians 2:4 tells us, “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” It is only by that unwarranted, unmerited love of God you are the person you are today through Him.
Psalm 105:2 ” Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts.”
Everyday we should be celebrating the many blessings from God…for He does things far beyond the bounds of what we think, expect, or can even imagine. Genesis 18:14 goes further to ask, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” But I heard an interesting sermon the other day challenging the idea of just what a blessing was. Do we thank God only for the good things we have, and that happen to us. Or do we praise Him also for all the difficult, uncomfortable, and bad things that come into our lives? How do we know that something meant for bad can’t suddenly be turned around by God for good? For what we see as affliction, can become the way to deeper holiness and sanctification in our life…or what appears to be a difficult situation may turn out to be a godsend in the end. This gives new meaning then to the song “Count your many Blessings”…for we need to praise God for everything that comes into our lives…the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Mark 7:24 ” Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet He could not keep His presence secret.”
You can’t quell the glory of God. In Luke 19 the people had begun joyfully to praise God in loud voices when the Pharisees ordered Jesus to rebuke them. Verse 40 says, “I tell you, He replied, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Rejoicing in the Lord can not be contained…it must burst forth in worship of our Heavenly Father and what He’s done for us. Just like Jesus couldn’t keep His presence secret in that house, our praise and worship of God can’t be silenced or suppressed either.
Safetypinlove 