“I will praise the name of God With a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. 31. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs. 32. The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.”
Praising God is important. I looked in my concordance for the word “praise” and I found line after line of scripture references about praising God. I did not count them, but there were a lot of them. Psalm 69:30-32 is a case in point. In verse 30 David tells us how to praise God. He says that he will praise God with a song. My personal take on this is that God put a song on David’s heart and he would sing the song to the Lord. I sometimes praise God with singing the old hymns that I have sung over the years. (I know a lot of them by heart, except for the third verse of most four verse hymns. I think you know why.) When a song arises in my heart, I find myself singing it to God. But this “song” can also just be silent praise of God/Jesus. David also wrote that he would magnify God with thanksgiving. The NIV translates “magnify” as “glorify.” Both words mean that God's presence in our lives is so overwhelming that we will praise Him with great thanksgiving. The song and the thanksgiving can come at the strangest times. It can come when we are sitting in church; it can come when we are driving, or it can come when we are in the middle of a workday. This praise and thanksgiving does not have to be loud, or public, it just has to come from our hearts if not from our mouths. Do you have a song in your heart that leads you to thank Him? In verse 32 David tells us one of the results of praising God: “This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.” What this means is that the praise that comes from our hearts is more pleasing to God than the religious things that we do. The reference to bullocks is a reference to the animal sacrifices made at the tabernacle, and later the temple. To us this means that God is more pleased with praise than He is if we just “go to church” and it doesn’t make any difference in our lives. I think that we have to have some ritual in our public worship, but when it becomes the end rather than the means to an end, then we are not pleasing God. God is pleased when we praise Him, not because He has an ego that needs it; rather He is pleased when we genuinely praise Him because He knows that we need to do that and that it is good for us spiritually. If you want to please God, you can please Him by genuine heartfelt worship. Of course, this is not the only way that we can please God, but it is certainly a good start. . In verse 33, David tells us that our heartfelt praise influences other people: “The humble (or the meek) shall see this, and be glad…” I think this means that the people whose hearts are open to seeking God will be influenced by our praise. It is important, however, that our praise cause them to praise God rather than praising us. Our witness serves as a witness to people about our God. But David added something that means our influence will be inward as well: “and your hearts shall live that seek God.” When we praise God our hearts come alive, our faith grows, our witness becomes more powerful and our lives are changed day by day. The point is that when we are secure within our own hearts, we will be a greater influence on others. What happens when we praise God? We draw closer to God, we please Him and we influence others. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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