"I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. 4. For thy mercy is great above the heavens and thy truth reacheth to the clouds. (KJV) "I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, I will sing of you among the peoples. 4. For great is your love, higher than the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the skies." (NIV)
I drew the full meaning of this text from both the KJV and NIV translations. The text begins by offering praise to God; which reminds us that we must praise God. We must praise Him for our own good and for the benefit of others. Our praise of God feeds our souls and it sets an example for people who need to know God on a more intimate basis. Praise is important, but our reasons for praise are also important. The psalmist revealed to us why he would praise God "among the people" and "among the nations." He praised God because of His love and mercy. God's mercy reaches beyond the skies. That is to say that God's love and mercy is unlimited and eternal. Where would we be without the love and mercy of God? To say the least, we would be in deep trouble. Suppose that God was only a God of wrath. We have examples in the Bible of what God's wrath is like. If wrath was all that we had from Him, there would be no hope and life would be hell on earth - literally. We have experienced the love and mercy of God on a deeper level than the psalmist, because we have experienced His love through His Son. Jesus is the greatest evidence of God's love and mercy and He has offered Himself to us to save us from the wrath of God. Doesn't that make you want to praise Him at this moment? Another reason for praising God given here is because of the truth and faithfulness of God. We praise God because He always tells us the truth and He is always faithful to carry out the promises that He has made through His word. An example of this truth and faithfulness is given in 1John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins..." The truth is that when we confess our sins to God through Jesus, He will always be faithful to forgive us. Let's face it, even the people who are dearest to us can let us down at times, and we, in turn, can let them down, but God never lets us down. Even when He allows negative things in our lives, His truth and faithfulness are at work. That's why Paul wrote in Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Stop what you are doing right now and offer up praise to God. Remember that He loves you and has given you His eternal mercy. Remember that He will always be truthful and faithful in your life. Thank Him and praise Him! Bro, Joe
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“O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people. 2. For His merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise ye the Lord."
There are times that the fewer the words, the better the statement. This is not true all of the time, but it is certainly true of Psalm 117. This short psalm says so much in so few words that it takes only a few seconds to read it. In fact, when I am reading through Psalms I always enjoy reading the short one, because the next two psalms are very long – particularly Psalm 119. Both of those psalms take a good while to read and to garner all of the truth in them. However, it takes more than a few seconds to meditate on the truth that is contained in the few words of Psalm 117. The first thing about this psalm is that it calls upon us to praise the Lord: “O praise ye the Lord.” Throughout the Bible we are reminded to praise the Lord. In Psalm 117, we are told who should praise the Lord: “O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people.” As many times as I have read this psalm, it occurred to me this time that the psalm is calling for the universal praise of God. As you probably know, the Old Testament is primarily about God’s work with the Israelites, but this psalm calls for all of the nations to praise the Lord. Perhaps, it is looking forward to the time when the Messiah would call the whole world to Himself, and to praise almighty God. Notice that the next call to praise is to “all ye people.” What I see here is that the call is for the nations in general to praise God, then for the people of God to praise Him. Today, we call this people groups. This psalm reminds us that God is God of all nations and all of the people groups that make up all nations. It is a call for everyone to praise God. What we need to do is to do our part in praising God on a daily basis. The second thing about this psalm is that it reminds us about the “merciful kindness” of God. Another translation of this line is “faithful love” of God. The wonderful thing is that the faithful love of God leads to His merciful kindness to His people. It really upsets me that God is getting such bad press from some corners today. Unbelievers talk about how terrible He is because of wrath and judgment. What they are missing in their lostness is that this is just part of the nature of God. He faithfully loves us and is always ready to show His merciful kindness to us. If these unbelievers would take a deep breath and believe they would see this aspect of God that calls us to Himself. It was God’s merciful kindness that led Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan. It was God’s merciful kindness that divided the Red Sea for the Israelites. It was God’s merciful kindness that led the Israelites by “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night” in their journey from Egypt to Canaan. It was the merciful kindness of God that sent His Son into the world to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins so that we could live with Him in heaven forever if we believe in Him. The third thing about this psalm is that it reminds us that “the truth of the Lord endures forever.” There are a lot of people in the world who think they know the real truth. The real truth is embedded in the person of God Himself. In fact Jesus said in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the Life.” Jesus was the culmination of the Bible’s drive toward the full revelation of the truth of God. The truth is that God loves the world and that it was in His great loving heart, and His great merciful kindness, to save us through His Son. The truth that we have in the God of the Bible reaches from one end of eternity to the other, or as the psalmist often wrote: “from everlasting to everlasting. We don’t know all of the truth about everything, but we know One who does and we join Him by faith in His great truth that endures forever. The psalm closes with a repeat of the call to praise: “Praise ye the Lord.” Bro. Joe “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation. 3. With joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation.”
The twelfth chapter of Isaiah is a song of praise, as well as a prophecy of the trustworthiness of God. Verses 2-3 give us a glimpse of Isaiah’s personal faith and hope. (Let us pray that it will be contagious.) Isaiah declared that the Lord Himself was his salvation. He also declared that because of this, he would not be afraid. As I read my Bible this morning, this was an encouraging word to me in this troubled day. We need to put our faith and trust in the Lord and not be afraid. Isaiah lived during the Assyrian invasion that captured the northern tribe of Israel and was threatening the southern tribe of Judah. Isaiah encouraged Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and helped give him the courage to face Assyria, and to see the Lord save Judah – which was what happened. The same Lord will give us the courage to face our own problems and fears. The Lord will lead us over, around or through our problems and fears. Isaiah declared that “the Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song, He has become my salvation.” We need to really put it in our minds and hearts that the Lord Jesus Christ will give us the strength to overcome whatever we need to overcome. In the Lord Jesus Christ we have strength greater than our own. Where did David find the strength to face Goliath? Did he trust in the strength of his sling shot and five stones? Here is what David said to Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:45: “You have come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord almighty….” David found his strength from the same source that we can use, that is in the strength of the “Lord Almighty.” Isaiah’s message to his fellow Israelites promised that: “With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation.” It is in God’s salvation and strength that we find joy. It is a well of joy that will never run dry. In John 4:14, Jesus told the woman at the well, and us, that: “Whoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst.” No matter what we face, we know that the Lord will be with us. I have found in my own battles with fear that His presence is enough. There is strength and joy in knowing that He is present with us in all that we face in life. This is true for you! Let’s join Isaiah and trust in the Lord in His salvation, strength and joy. Bro. Joe “Sing praises to God, sing praises unto the King, sing praises. 7. For God is the king of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. 8. God reigns over the heathen: God sits upon the throne of His holiness. KJV
“Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our king, sing praises. 7. For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! 8. God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne. ESV These three verses in Psalm 47 emphatically urge us to sing praises to God. When I read this, I began to wonder about our own singing. When we sing in church services, either the old hymns, or the praise songs are we really praising God, or just going through the motions of singing the familiar words? I know most of the old hymns by heart since I have heard them my whole life. (At least I know the first, second, and last verses but not the third, since we don’t usually sing this verse.) Not a day goes by that I don’t sing several of the hymns that I know. (Not aloud, however, for the sake of others.) I will admit that they mean more to me when I sing from my heart rather than from memory – if you get my drift. Why should we sing praises to God from our hearts? First, we should sing praises to God because He is our King – with a capital K. A king is the ruler of his domain. In this case, verse 7 tells us that “God is the King of all the earth…” This means that every place on earth is God’s domain. We cannot go farther than that. God is the king of the universe. We are told that God created “the heavens and the earth.” The “heavens” are what we call sky, or space, and we know that space stretches into infinity. If we could go to the farthest reaches of the universe, we would find God there. The immensity of God’s domain will blow our minds if we let it. In fact, the immensity of God will blow our minds if we let it. It doesn’t blow our minds because we think about it in faith and we praise Him in and for His greatness. Second, we should sing praises to God “with understanding.” The Hebrew term used here, translated “psalm” in the ESV, is a term of praise, meaning that we are to understand the greatness of God when we sing praises to Him. We are to be aware of God’s love for us when we sing praises to Him. We are to be aware of God’s grace towards us when we sing praise to Him. We are to be aware of God’s presence with us when we sing praises to Him. To sing praises with these things, and myriads of others, is to sing praises with an understanding of whom and what God is to us and to the world. In other words, we are not just singing praises; we are singing praises to almighty God. This kind of praise could change our understanding of God’s presence in our lives and cause a spiritual growth spurt that would change our lives for the better. Third, we should sing praises to God because “He reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” The KJV translates this that God reigns over the “heathen.” This is how the Jews in the psalmist's day viewed the nations- anyone who wasn’t a Jew was a heathen. They would understand that the psalmists, in this case the sons of Korah, were telling them that God’s ultimate reign was not just in Jerusalem, but in the whole world. God reigns in holiness over the whole world. Perhaps the majority of the world’s people would scoff at this notion, but that does not make it untrue. That’s why it is so important for us to go to the nations and introduce them to the God who reigns in holiness over them. When you are singing praises to God this week, think about the three things that this psalm tells us about how to sing praises to Him. Bro. Joe “Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications. 7. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him; and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him.”
In Psalm 28, David was in distress because of His enemies, and he reached out to God. Verses 6-7 give a summary of what David concluded, and he told us some things that we need to know about God in the midst of our own struggles. In verse 6, he reminds us that God hears our prayers. Indeed, He hears the cries of our hearts as we cry out to Him each day. We can absolutely be assured that God will hear “the voice of (our) supplications.” What is your need right now? He will hear your prayer. I can’t imagine not reaching out to Jesus in prayer. In verse 7a, David reminds us that the Lord is our strength and shield. Sometimes we forget that the greatest strength that we can have is spiritual strength, which will come to our rescue much more effectively than physical strength. We need to practice leaning on God’s strength. The shield that we have from God is the shield of faith. In describing the armor of God in Ephesians 6, Paul wrote: “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Why would we not take our fears, needs and struggles to the Lord in prayer? Why would we not lean on His strength and take the shield of faith? All that the Lord has to offer is at our disposal. Why not take advantage of all that He offers for our lives? In the latter part of verse 7, David tells us what the result of God’s hearing our prayers and giving us His being our strength and shield should be. First, it should result in our hearts trusting in Him. We should trust Jesus from within the deepest part of ourselves. What strength this will bring into your life if you will just put your trust in Him. No one needs to teach you how to do this – just do it. Like David, you will find that you will be helped. Second, we will have cause to “greatly rejoice.” I do not know why we aren’t as joyful as we should be. I am amazed at myself sometimes, because I find not myself not rejoicing in all that the Lord has done, is doing and will do in my life. Let this be a reminder for both of us!!! Third, it should result in praise to His wonderful name. Because David was a musician, one of hiss greatest means of rejoicing was in song. The Lord should put a song in our hearts as well. Just cut loose today and praise Him in whatever way you can. Don’t you agree that these we are things that we need to know about God? Bro. Joe “Sing to the Lord, you saints of His, praise His holy name. 5. For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
These verses remind us of what our response should be to God no matter how trying life has become. When things are not going well for us, we have a tendency to blame God. We might not consciously admit this, but in the back of our minds we think that God owes us more than we are getting. Blaming God for hardships will get us nowhere. We live in a fallen world and that is the way life is in a fallen world. Trials and tribulations are part of living, and they can be tests of our faith. The question is what is our response to God when things are tough? These two verses from Psalm 30 will tell us what our response should be – regardless. “Sing to the Lord, you saints of His, praise His holy name.” What God wants from us at all times is to praise Him. Praise was not always easy for David and other psalmists. The psalms are full of complaints to the Lord because of what life was handing them at the time. Yet the psalmists also remind us time after time that we are to praise God. In psalm 35:28 David wrote: “And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.”If we praise God “all the daylong” we will surely, at some point, praise Him in the midst of trouble. Asaph wrote in psalm 50:15: “And call upon me in the day of trouble; and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify (praise) me.” I looked up “praise” in my Strong’s exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, and I found passage after passage about praising God. The Bible is full of the praises of God. I know that life can be hard, and that some things that happen to us are awfully hard to overcome, but it does us no good to give in to self-pity or grumbling and complaining. What we need to do during these times is to “sing to the Lord…praise His holy name.” You will be a better person for it, and you will feel better about yourself. “His anger lasts only for a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime.” This is a good reminder for us that God is not against us. He might be against the way we are living at a given time, as we are told: “His anger lasts only a moment,” which does mean that He gets angry with us. That anger comes because He knows that we can do better. When you feel God-forsaken, and think that God is not doing anything in your life, remember that you have His favor. We need to be careful with this word “favor.” We can get the idea that when things are not going our way, we have lost God’s favor. Read it again: “But His favor lasts a lifetime…” There are times when we feel God’s favor more than at other times, but God always wants the best for us, and when we forget that fact we stray from what the Lord Jesus wants of us. We do well to remember His favor, especially when we are going through difficult times. “Weeping may endure for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” There are four words that have come to mean a lot to me over the years, and they are: “this, too, shall pass.” That is what David meant when he wrote: “Weeping may endure for a night…” We need to remember that nothing lasts forever. Whatever you are going through right now will come to an end, and at the end of it there will be joy and rejoicing. Sometimes it seems that woes will never end, but they do. What we need to focus on is not the weeping but the joy and rejoicing. The choice as to how we will respond to the “weeping” is really up to us. We can pout and simmer, but that will only prolong the weeping. We just need to remember that when “morning” comes there will be joy and rejoicing. Grab a hold of this truth, and make it a way of life. The right response to the Lord is to praise Him, remember His favor and accept the joy that He sends “in the morning." Bro. Joe “O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people. 2.For His merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.”
If you are ever required to memorize a psalm, this would be one, for it is the shortest of the Psalms. It is short in length, but it is not short in meaning. It contains three of the most important elements in the Bible: praising the Lord, God’s mercy and God’s truth. I want to share my reflections on this short, but meaningful psalm. Reflections on praise Psalm 117 begins and ends with a call to praise the Lord. We praise God because He is worthy of praise. We should praise Him daily in our private devotions and in public worship. If we really think about it, there is no inappropriate time to praise the Lord. This psalm tells everyone to praise the Lord. The Psalmist assured his readers that the Lord was not merely a local deity. He did not belong to Israel alone. God created the whole world and all of the people of the world. This spoke to me of missions. It is our responsibility to call the whole world to Jesus and to lead them to praise His holy name. He is worthy of praise. This psalm tells you to praise the Lord, for it addresses you when you read it. The Lord wants your praise, because He knows that praising Him is good for you. Reflections on mercy We should, indeed, praise the Lord for His mercy, for just think of living in a world where only the judgment of the Lord is known. It is the Lord’s mercy that allows us to be saved. God’s mercy sent His Son into the world. Without Jesus, we would know only judgment and wrath. I can think of no better reason to praise Him. Notice that the psalm tells us that the Lord’s “mercy is great toward us.” Our sins are great; therefore, His mercy is great. Without God’s mercy we would live and die in our sins. There would be no hope of the“abundant life” that Jesus promised to those who believe in Him, and there would be no hope of heaven when this life is over. God’s mercy is great toward us. Do you personally know His “merciful kindness”? It is available to you in Jesus Christ. When you know God’s “merciful kindness,” you will praise Him. Reflections on truth The psalmist wrote: “And the truth of the Lord endureth forever.” and Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) We praise Him, not just because we know that everything that Jesus does and says is true, but because we can personally know God’s truth in Him. All of God’s truth dwells in Jesus Christ, and to know Jesus personally is to possess all of God’s truth. God’s truth is too great to grasp intellectually, but we can have it by faith in Jesus. In a world filled with Satan’s lies, we desperately need His truth. Notice, also, that the Lord’s truth “endures forever.” What was true of the Lord in biblical days is still true today. Time cannot erode the fact that Jesus is the truth, for His truth is timeless. If the Lord’s truth could be erased, the world would have done away with it a long time ago. Do you know the Lord’s enduring truth in Jesus? Psalm 117 ends with, “Praise ye the Lord.” Why should we praise Him? His merciful kindness and truth endures forever. Praise the Lord because we can know His mercy and truth in Jesus. Praise Him for the grace that enables us to know His mercy and truth. Bro. Joe “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”
“Bless the Lord,” means “praise the Lord.” Praising the Lord is one of the greatest benefits and privileges that we have, and Psalm 103:2 gives us a good definition of praise. It tells us that it is praise to the Lord. It is the Lord who gives life and sustains it. Paul reminded the Athenians in Acts 17:28 that it is in the Lord that “we live and move and have our being.” The Lord created us. The Lord loves us. The Lord cares for us to the point that even the hairs of our heads are numbered. He is aware of everything that goes on in our lives and is always concerned for our lives. James wrote that the Lord gives us “every good and perfect gift.” Indeed, the Lord is worthy of our praise, but do we really praise Him? When we sing in church are we really and truly praising the Lord? When we read the Bible, or hear it read, do we really and truly praise the Lord for His word? Better yet, when we drop our tithes and offerings into the collection plate, are we really and truly praising the Lord? Do we praise the Lord on a daily basis? For example, when we get up in the morning do we praise the Lord? When we go to bed at night, do we praise the Lord? Understand that praise is not the noise we make. We can make a lot of noise in church, or in private worship, but that doesn’t mean that we are really praising the Lord. The text also tells us that praise is from the soul: “Bless the Lord, O my soul…” Our souls are who we are in our hearts. Our souls are the deepest part of ourselves, where real worship and praise take place. This kind of praise comes from all of the faculties and powers of our being. To praise the Lord from the soul is to praise Him with all that we have and all that we are. Psalm 103:1 actually describes what takes place when we praise the Lord from our souls: “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me bless His holy name.” The best way that I can describe this worship and praise is that when we worship from our souls, we worship the Lord with all of the positives and negatives within us. We pour it all out in praise of Him! In other words, praise from the soul is honest. The text further tells us that we praise the Lord for His benefits: “Forget not all His benefits.” How do we remember all of the benefits of the Lord in our lives? We remember through praise. It is possible that the reason many people are not grateful for the Lord’s benefits is because they do not praise Him as they should, or as often as they should. How can we not praise Him, for example, for the benefit of salvation? After all salvation is a gift of God. We could never have earned salvation. We are saved because of God’s grace and love for us. How could we not praise Him for the benefit of the indwelling Holy Spirit? There are many more benefits that we have from the Lord than we do not have room for here. Suffice it to say that we need to praise the Lord for all of His benefits. Praise the Lord from your soul, and do not forget all that He has done for and will continue to do for you. Remember your utter dependence on Him and you will have no problem praising Him. Decide today that you are going to make it a practice to praise the Lord wherever you are. You do not have to do it with words; you can just praise Him from your heart. Do it! Bro. Joe "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (NIV)
Christians are often reminded of the need to be humble, but we are also reminded that we have a special calling from God to be His people ln the world. We are all that the text says, not to boast about our position in Christ, but to be His witnesses in the world. The text declares that we are "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God." That is heady stuff, isn't it? But the very last lines in this verse tell us why we are all of this. It is certainly not to give us bragging rights, but "to declare the praises of Him Who called (us) out of darkness into His marvelous light." We are told what to share with people. We are to share "the praises of Him..." We have a lot to praise God for. We have been called out of a life of sin and degradation to a life of joy and satisfaction in Christ. We need to share this verbally, but we also need to declare it with the way we live our lives and in the way that we treat people. We have the promise of eternity with God in heaven. That is something that a lot of people do not think about, because they are so busy with life, making a living, etc. But we need to call their attention to the fact that there is a life beyond this one and that it is all-important for them to receive Christ as their Savior. I know that sounds quaint today, and is the source of a lot of jokes, but it is, nevertheless true. These are two examples of all that we have to praise God for. We are told why we can share His praises. Notice how we came to be in the position of God’s chosen people. It is because He called us out of the darkness. Those who hear God’s call to become Christians are those who are given the privilege, opportunity, and duty to share “the praises of Him.” I need to be careful here, because I know that in Baptist circles the word “called” is usually in reference to a call into the ministry. It could be a call into the ministry, but that is not what it is about. It is a call for people from all walks of life and in all professions to“declare the praises of Him…” If we are to be what God wants us to be in this world, we can’t all be in church - related vocations. God’s call is to store clerks, doctors, dentists, dental assistants, secretaries, CEOs, or whatever vocation one is involved in. In fact, people out in the workaday world have closer contact with people than church staffs. Think of what a difference it would make in our world if all of the Christians in the workaday world “declared the praises of Him.” I imagine that our churches would have fewer empty pews, and more importantly, the kingdom of God would have more people to “declare the praises of Him.” We are told why we should declare His praises. It is because we have been called out of darkness into light. I consider myself a positive person, but as I look around me, I see a lot of darkness. I see the possibility of darkness in my own life. Satan always calls us back to the earthly pleasures of sin, and we have to be on guard about that. I see the darkness of the world all around me in the newspaper, on television, on the radio, etc. I do not wish to join that darkness. I remember living in a dark world and it was not satisfying. But we are not called to shun this dark world but to encounter it with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember we are declaring that we have been called out of darkness into light. We do not need to be self-righteous about it, because that would be counter-productive.But it is true, nevertheless, and we are to declare it humbly, being thankful that we are in Christ. Bro. Joe "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (NIV)
Christians are often reminded of the need to be humble, but we are also reminded that we have special calling from God to be His people to the world. We are all that the text says, not to boast about our position in Christ, but to be His witnesses in the world. The text declares that we are "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God." That is heady stuff, isn't it? But the very last lines in this verse tell us why we are all of this: "to declare the praises of Him Who called (us) out of darkness into His marvelous light." First, we are told what to share with people. We are to share "the praises of Him..." We have a lot to praise God for. We have been called out of a life of sin to a life of joy and satisfaction in Christ. We need to share this verbally, but we also need to declare it with the way we live our lives and in the way that we treat people. We have the promise of eternity with God in heaven. That is something that a lot of people do not think about, because they are so busy with life, making a living, etc. But we need to call their attention to the fact that there is a life beyond this one and that it is all-important for them to receive Christ as their Savior. Second, we are told why we should declare His praises. It is because we have been called out of darkness into light. I consider myself a positive person, but as I look around me, I see a lot of darkness. I see the possibility of darkness in my own life. Satan always calls us back to the earthly pleasures of sin, and we have to be on guard. I remember living in a dark world and it was not satisfying. But we are not called to shun this dark world but to encounter it with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember we are declaring that we have been called out of darkness into light. We do not need to be self-righteous about it, because that would be counter-productive. But it is true, nevertheless, and we are to declare it humbly, being thankful that we are in Christ. Psalm 100:2 reminds us that we are to “serve the Lord with gladness." When we realize that we are fulfilling a great purpose we will have a good attitude about what we are doing, and share His praises with enthusiasm and gladness. Having read this article, you might need to ask yourself if this is a description of your life? Satan will do anything to keep us from “declaring the praises of God." Satan hates it when we get serious about walking in God’s light and serving Him. He can keep us from declaring God’s praises by keeping us out of God’s word and away from our prayer closets. He uses the tool of discouragement to keep us from declaring God’s praises in our lives. When you feel that it is too time consuming to serve God, or when you feel that you are being pulled away from valuable Christian disciplines, you can be sure that Satan is at work to keep you declaring God’s praises. Don't let him do it. Share God's praises with a world that needs His praises. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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