January 31
Although we know we are to praise the Lord because of who He is, there is an element of selfishness in our praise. We tend to praise Him when we are feeling uplifted more than at any other time. The reality is that the act of praise in itself will lift us up, for He “inhabits the praise of His people,” Psalm 22:3, but we don’t always consider that.
We are not alone in this, for we find even David operating from the same viewpoint. For example, in Psalm 28:6 he says, “Praise be to the Lord for He has heard my cry for mercy.” The sweet psalmist does not say here that he will praise the Holy One because he knows He will hear his plea.
In Psalm 30:11-12, David again lifts His voice in praise because, “You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy that my heart may sing to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give You praise forever.” Again, the praise is hung on something God has done in David’s behalf, and like him, we tend to extend our thanks and praise when we have received an answer to prayer.
May we require ourselves to emerge from this pattern of praising Him after He does something in our behalf and praise Him instead for Who He Is! If we will do that, perhaps we will then evidence more of His power in our prayers and be conformed more fully to the practice of the apostles who “were continually in the temple praising and blessing God,” Luke 24:53. Perhaps, like them, we shall be then identified as, “…these who have turned the world upside down,” Acts 17:6
Praise is a powerful tool of deliverance in the midst of exceeding trials. An old Army Chaplain wrote a book decades ago titled, POWER IN PRAISE. It was a series of vignettes regarding soldiers and their families who had come to him for counsel during his years as chaplain at Ft. Benning, an Army base in Georgia.
ReplyDeleteInvariably, they had exhausted every option and were at the end of their rope. Chaplain Carrouthers counseled them to praise God in spite of their desperation. Invariably, they rejected the notion as totally illogical and foolish. Invariably, when reminded that nothing else had worked and no further harm could be done even if it were a futile exercise, they tried it--and it turned their circumstances around!
If you are at a point of desperation in your life, try praising God. Doing so demonstrates your conviction that HE IS GREATER THAN ANYTHING THAT HAS COME AGAINST YOU!
It may turn YOUR circumstances around.