Greetings to you in the wonderful, powerful, and beautiful name of Jesus Christ – THE Risen Savior! Wow…a beautiful morning in the Kingdom, the beginning of a day that God has created for us and our response – to rejoice and be glad in it. I trust that you had a good weekend and Monday with many blessings coming your way and opportunities to share them with family and friends. Today I will ne raying for you, asking Father to let you experience His presence in a tangible way…may He give you wisdom and patience as you move through the day…may health, strength, and a happy heart be your portion.
As I prepared for last Sunday’s teaching, God’s Word spoke to my heart: These people claim to be mine and praise me with their lips, but they don’t mean it! Their hearts are somewhere else far from me. Their worship of me is just a routine repeated without thinking. – Isaiah 29:13…True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. That’s the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. – John 4:23. And so began a sermon focused on “praising God”…with thoughtfulness and passion. We considered the benefits to us of praising God, how vitally important praise is.
I want to highlight those benefits over the next few blogs, and I will begin with – “praising God lifts my spirits…it energizes me”! It is only right that praising God would affect us personally because we will be the first person to hear what our tongues are speaking. Have you noticed that when you murmur or complain or find fault or express anger-frustration-discontent…you agree with yourself and it has a profound negative affect on how your day goes?
However when you can genuinely, thoughtfully, with emotion, and faith simply worship God with praise and thanksgiving – your outlook gets positive and your day can turn around. What we hear ourselves say that is positive encourages and stabilizes…it is the ultimate mood enhancer. The Psalmist understood that when he was discouraged or troubled or upset…he needed to put his hope in God and praise Him. (Psalm 42:5-6)
Today remind yourself about how important what you say to yourself is. I think it is true that we pay a lot of attention to the words we speak. Consider this…before you say something negative or complaining or murmuring, chose to “praise God” for what He has done for you, the blessing He has given you, the hope you have…”praise God” for who He is – kind, loving, merciful, forgiving. You can lift your spirits with a little bit of praise!
Something to ponder…be blessed!