August 9 - Praise the Lord 

Happy Friday! I hope your week has gone well and you have had some time to enjoy friends and family and you were able to tell them how much they meant to you. 


I’ve been reading about praise and worship while I’m plowing through the Psalms. One author suggested that praise is a foreign concept to Americans who would rather roast their political leaders than praise them. I suppose that may be true, but we have no issues or “hold-ups” praising our favorite athletes or movie stars or musicians. Praise is an expected outcome of a great performance. I think maybe where we get held up is remembering all the magnificent things God has done and the majesty of who He is. 


“Hallelujah! Praise GOD from heaven, praise him from the mountaintops; Praise him, all you his angels, praise him, all you his warriors, Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, you morning stars; Praise him, high heaven, praise him, heavenly rain clouds; Praise, oh let them praise the name of GOD — he spoke the word, and there they were!”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭148:1-5‬ ‭MSG‬‬


I’ve heard many people say that God didn’t need their praise, or why would God want to be told all the time how great He is? Is He really that self-absorbed? No, He’s not egocentric or needing our approval. God loves to hear from us, but with or without our praise, He is still God. We on the other hand, certainly need Him to be with us and dwell among us and for that to happen, we need to create an atmosphere of praise and worship reserved strictly for God’s inhabitance. 


“Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ””. Luke‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭NIV‬‬


We enter into communion with God when we worship Him and bring a heart full of thankfulness. Eugene Peterson says praise is “the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God. Worship is the time and place that we assign for deliberate attentiveness to God—not because he’s confined to time and place but because our self-importance is so insidiously relentless that if we don’t deliberately interrupt ourselves regularly, we have no chance of attending to Him at all at other times and in other places.”


“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭100:1-5‬ ‭NIV‬‬


Lord of Heaven, thank you for your goodness and your grace and your overwhelming love. Teach us Lord to worship you as you deserve, in spirit and in truth. Help us to pray without ceasing and to never forget what a wonderful God you are and how blessed we are to be called your children. Teach us to not get caught up in the things of this temporary world, but to set our sights on things above. Praise you Jehovah, our rock and our shield. Hallelujah for the precious blood of Jesus by which we are saved. Amen and amen. 


Love you dear one,

Pam



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