The Importance of Praise

Praise is a lot more than getting worked up in singing a praise song. Praise invites God’s presence; our spirit is refreshed and renewed. God dwells close to us when we praise Him, and we are strengthened by His peace. Praise facilitates access to God. Obviously, it’s the blood of Jesus that paves the way for our forgiveness from sin and our relationship with God.

Psalms 150:6 says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord”. That being said, our perpetual continuous praise provides a clear and unhindered passage to God. God’s presence is especially intense in an atmosphere of praise. Praise is how to make prayer more effective. A quote from a commentary, “When we praise, productivity is maximized, fulfillment is realized, and frustration is neutralized.”

There is no better way to beat the blues than to change our focus from self to God. Isaiah 6:13 says such a shift produces the oil of gladness against the devil. God is worthy of our praise. Praise will get our focus where it needs to be…on God. If we start praising God in the middle of our problems, our problems seem to shrink so much that we may hardly remember to bring them to God.

Praying is to create an intimate space between you and the Lord, allowing Him to speak directly to your heart in such a way you are drawn to Him. Praise opens the way for God’s blessings over our lives. When we praise God, God knows that we are turning our attention fully to Him. He knows that we are mustering up trust that He is the answer, plus, we are starting to push back and throw off feelings of being hopelessly defeated.

Praising God will increase our faith. As we spend time praising God, we can recount the great things He has done in our life, which builds our faith. Praise is a means of entrance with boldness into God’s presence and the Psalms says that the Lord inhabits, or is enthroned in, the praise of His people. Praise invites our entrance into His presence. It is the welcome of His throne into our circumstances.

So, praise is a very important part of our worship and prayer life. Maybe when praying, we should start off by praising our God instead of going right in asking God to do what we are praying for. We have a wonderful God to praise.

Today is a New Day for Everyone

Have you ever thought about what “a new day” really means?  To some it means just another day with the same routine, to others it may mean a new opportunity to work hard and advance themselves, and still to others it may just be a continuation of the previous day with all the mistakes, anger, and resentment.  But what is “new” actually supposed to be?  I believe a new day is a completely blank slate, for everyone, not just for me.

The Bible states in Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Why does God want us to rejoice in each new day if let’s say maybe it starts off badly, or maybe anger and resentment from the day before is still with us, or possibly we continue to dwell and think about our mistakes from the past, or we hold a grudge against someone who hurt us?  Could it be that we are to rejoice because the day is a clean blank slate?  A blank slate for everyone, basically a do over.

A new day gives us the chance to be a better person in our actions, a kinder person to those around us, and most importantly a new day gives us the opportunity to listen to God and His instruction better than the day before. A new day also means that it won’t be the same as the previous day. In Isaiah 43:19 God says “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”  That verse is talking about the coming of Jesus Christ as our salvation, but could it also be describing what each day actually should be?

If so, how should that affect our perspective?  The amazing thing is that all of the people that may have hurt us, said cruel things to us, or did cruel things to us also get the same “new day”.  A new day for things to be different.  We should allow everyone their new day and not condemn them to being the same person in our minds that they were the day before.  Everyone starts out with a clean slate, everyone.

God’s mercies are new every day and ours should be too.

The God of All Creation

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God Himself.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him not one thing was made that came into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or absorb it.

John 1:10-14

He (Christ) was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.  He came to that which was His own, and those who were His own did not receive and welcome Him.  But to as many as did receive Him and welcome Him, He gave the right to become children of God, that is, to those who believe in His name – who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Jesus Christ is the God of creation, and He has given us the most precious gift.  It is the gift of salvation through the very One who created everything.  The Creator loves His creation so much that He knew the only way to save it and make things right was to sacrifice His very life for it.  The bible states that everything in existence is His creation, and He knows intimately every part of it.  We, all of us, belong to Him. It is our choice whether or not we accept and believe in Him so that we may have the salvation He is offering us.  Salvation is the only gift that no one else but God can give.  The one true perfect gift.

Give Thanks to God

Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? -Job 2:10

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. We always have reasons to give thanks to God.

Job was one of the richest men in his time, but he was suddenly stripped of his material wealth, his children, and his health. Job’s perspective is admirable. He chose to accept life’s blessings as well as its struggles, its highs and its lows. Do you ever thank God for a tough day because you know it could be enlightening to you in the future? My guess is that many of us thank God later on, when we have the whole story, but seldom do we thank him while the trouble is happening.

We can pray to Him about areas in our lives that we consider tough right now: our careers, our relationships with our family, or whatever. And we can genuinely thank Him for the opportunity to grow. That sounds hard to do, but as we cooperate with God, He will give us strength to give thanks in all circumstances.

God promises to be there for us in good times and bad. We don’t know why God sometimes delivers us from bad stuff and sometimes we have to endure bad stuff, but He is always there for us to lean on Him. He doesn’t promise us a life of ease, but He does promise us that if we are faithful to Him, we can have our salvation even in our lowest and darkest times in this life. Our reward for being faithful isn’t all in this life, but He will reward us in heaven. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says,

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Develop an attitude of gratitude for your life story.

God, help me to look to you in every circumstance in my life, and empower me to always give you thanks and to praise you. Amen.