Praise the Lord

Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty firmament! Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness! Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp! Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes! Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150) Can we possible imagine what would happen in every community, city, state and even the entire world if believers would take this Psalm at face value and praise the Lord this way? It says, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." We must conclude that the only exception to praising the Lord as revealed in this Psalm would be if one had no breath, which means they would not be alive. 

So, what is praise? Praising the Lord has two aspects. First, praise is proclamation, which means to announce, declare or broadcast publicly. Therefore, praise is a public declaration. A public declaration of what? It is the public declaration of the great and powerful works of God. It is expressed by singing, playing musical instruments, and giving shouts of joy, as well as by different postures of the body, including clapping, raising the hands, and dancing. We see this in the life of David the king and Israel, as they brought the Ark of the Covenant of God to the city of David, "And so it was, when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep.  Then David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet." (2 Samuel 6:13-15) "Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn, with trumpets and with cymbals, making music with stringed instruments and harps." (1 Chronicles 15:28)

What a sight this must have been. How they were honoring the Lord with exuberant music, dance and shouting. Sadly though, "Davids wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David whirling and playing music; and she despised him in her heart." (1 Chronicles 15:29) It was sad because David was not dancing with all his might to draw attention to himself but, it was before the Lord who had chosen him to be ruler over Israel. (2 Samuel 6:21) Due to Michal accusing David of being undignified in his exuberant praise before the Lord, "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death." (2 Samuel 6:21) This is also sad, because many in the church today consider those who shout, dance, clap, etc., in a church service is carnal, out-of-order and even disrespectful to the Lord, when in fact they are making a public declaration of the great and powerful works of God. The fact is, when it comes to praise among believers today, I believe that we have not been exuberant enough over the wonderful, powerful works of God.

The second aspect of praise is sacrifice. "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." (Hebrews 13:15) The Greek word for sacrifice refers to a victim, a killing. Every sacrifice implies death. In this case, the victim for the sacrifice is the flesh. Therefore, praising God requires a sacrifice because it is something that goes beyond our strength, convenience, desire, and comfort. To praise God, something of ourselves, something ungodly must die, must be killed, such as apathy, pride, selfishness, worry, fear, bad thoughts, bad attitudes or anything else that keeps us from wholeheartedly expressing His greatness, His great works. Our praises to the Lord are not simply during a church service, this is implied, but our praise is to be continuous, a life style.

Our sacrifice releases the Holy Spirit to move among us, coming to our aid bringing us to the place where once something in us has died, praising ceases to be a sacrifice, as it was in the beginning and now becomes the fruit of our lips, meaning, our praise becomes natural, spontaneous and heartfelt. Praise to the Lord was so important to David, He set up a system of continuous praise in the tabernacle David had erected for the Ark of God. (1 Chronicles 16:1), "And David appointed some of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, to commemorate, to thank, and to praise the Lord God of Israel." (1 Chronicles 16:4) I believe that praise and worship will be the catalyst that will usher the last major outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

During the beginnings of the early church, the Jewish converts were insisting that the Gentiles observe the Law of Moses as part of their conversion to Christianity. It had come to the place where, "the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter." (Acts 15:6) Through all the debate, dispute and witness of the situation, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle James speaks, "After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins,and I will set it up." (Acts 15:16) James is giving a paraphrase of Amos 9:11 plus some things spoken by the Prophet Hosea. 

The point being made is this; that some time after the Messiah (who is the seed and the Son of David) has come into the world, and following a great shaking up of Israel and the nations, there’s going to be a great revival and a return to the days as they were in King David’s time. It will be a time of great expansion of the kingdom of God. In those last days the tabernacle of David will be rebuilt and this tabernacle will be a refuge and a place of deliverance and salvation not just for the Jewish people, but will include Gentile's also. Together, Jew and Gentile would celebrate, praise the wonderful works of King Jesus. 

When we experience difficult periods in our lives, when life seems full of setbacks, financial troubles, or sickness, we may not have the desire to praise God, and yet, this is precisely the time when God will ask us to present the sacrifice of praise with the fruit of lips giving Him thanks. So, if we want to live at the forefront of what God is saying and doing, if we desire to live in constant blessings and to be permanently on fire for Him, then continuous praise should become the forefront part of our lives.

Not to Loud, We are in Church

I always find it interesting that so many believers can burst forth with excitement and emotion over a new product on the market, sporting or social events but in a church service be stoic and show little to know emotion. ACTS 2:5-13 reveals that the early church was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke to the people the "wonderful works of God." There was so much excitement that those from other parts of the world thought that they were jacked up on wine. Unfortunately the same holds true today, but instead of the world shouting the loudest, more times than not it's believers criticizing other believers.

Think about it, when did a new product, a sporting or social event ever have the ability to turn a person from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God? Yet when a believer expresses their extreme gratitude for "wonderful works of God" in their life, they are labeled a fanatic, to emotional or drawing attention to themselves. Somehow, someone has determined that shouting, clapping or lifting hands in a church service is disrespectful to the LORD and a church building has become a holy sacred shrine. The Apostle Paul tells us in I Corinthians 6:19 that a believers body is the temple of the Holy Spirit not a brick and mortar building.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem just days before He would be put to death, Luke 19:37-40 reveals that as Jesus drew near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise GOD with a LOUD VOICE for all the mighty works that they had seen. But the religious leaders, not to different from today, did not like what the multitude was doing or saying and wanted Jesus to rebuke His disciples, but Jesus answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."

Rejoicing and praising the LORD with a loud voice is powerful. It has brought down impenetrable walls of a city (Joshua 6), it has been used to defeat an army of enemies (II Chronicles 20) and it has been used to turn a seemingly bad situation around to save souls (Acts 16). In Peter 2:9 the word praises means virtue, excellence, manliness. Why won't believers act more like David the King when he brought the Ark of God to the City of David. David was not acting out of order or being disrespectful to the LORD as he danced with all of his might before the Ark of God, (although that is what his wife thought). On the contrary David was acting virtuous, excellent and manly. (I Samuel 4:9, I Corinthians 16:13)

So let us no longer be silent, but proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, because we were once not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. PTL...