Choose Praise

Child of God, did you know that you can overcome the sorrows and trials of life and praise the Lord in the midst of them? It's a tough discipline to learn but it is possible with the help of the Holy Spirit inside you. You can continue to have a pity party. You can continue to question God and even blame Him, or you can decide that you will trust and praise Him no matter what. It grieves the heart of Jesus to hear His children ask, "Why me?". Why NOT you? Why not me? Are we any better than our Lord who suffered tremendously and unjustly on this earth to redeem His chosen? I know self pity is an easy pitfall and the best of us have fallen victim to it at one time or another in our walk with Christ. We have to get on our faces and plead for His grace to sustain us through our pain and hardships. We have to surrender our will to Him. We have to ask Him to glorify His holy Name in whatever circumstances, in His sovereignty, He allows in our lives. And then beloved, we have to decide to praise Him regardless of the crushing weight of our trials and pain. If you are saved and belong to God, He tells you in 1 Thes. 5:16-18 "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus". Wow, what a command. It isn't a light suggestion and it doesn't say only if you feel like it. Or how about this one from Heb. 13:15, "Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name". I understand how hard this can be at times. When I am struggling to praise Him through the trials and pain, I always turn to the Psalms. I love Psalm 63:3-4 which says; "Because Your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name". Beloved, do you ever lift your hands up toward heaven when you praise the King of kings and Lord of lords? We teach our kindergartners different ways to pray to God, whether on their knees, on their face, dancing around, ect. We have demonstrated to them how we lift our hands in praise and prayer to Jehovah God. We pray many different ways in our class. But there's this little boy named Colton who every time we tell the kids that we are going to pray, he throws his hands in the air and throws his head back so that he can look up to the heavens during our prayer! The joy in his eyes and the smile on his face are amazing! Wow, that just blesses my heart to see a child understanding more about the joy of worshipping the Lord than most adults! It's the Holy Spirit inside of you Who will honor your praise to God even when you don't feel like doing it. He will give you joy unspeakable if you will only lay aside your cares and simply praise His holy Name. Here's another one: Psalm 145:1-3 "I will extol You, my God, O King, And I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised". Or this one from 146:1-2"Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD while I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being". And one more from 150:1-2 "Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse. Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness". In Revelation 19:5-6 we see a picture yet future. This is a part of John's account of what he saw the saints of God doing, those of us who will live forever and ever praising our King: "And a voice came from the throne , saying, 'Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.' Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying,'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns'". Beloved, we will spend all time and eternity singing praises to God. And it will be such a beautiful sound to His ears. But think about how precious it is to Him to hear a suffering child praise His name here and now. He knows your pain. He knows your hardships and your sufferings. And He wants to hear you praise His holy, righteous Name from the depths of that grief and pain! He wants you to thank Him through your tears. He longs for you to love Him enough to look up to the heavens and thank Him for His gracious, tender care. Your lack of understanding through your pain in no way negates His goodness or holiness! Did you get that, beloved? Nothing that seems bad in your life that He allows, in no way takes away one ounce from His rightful standing as the holy God of this universe! The LORD Omnipotent reigns!! He has bestowed tremendous grace and mercy on you to choose to save your soul from everlasting hell. He desires and deserves to hear your praise of thanksgiving to Him, regardless of what you are going through. But I'll tell you something; if you are not willing to praise Him through the pain, others will. He has other children who are suffering more than you and I could ever imagine, who are on their faces day and night thanking Him for whatever His sovereign will decides for their lives. And they are seeking His face for the grace to glorify His holy name through it. And they praise Him for counting them worthy to suffer for the mighty Name of Jesus Christ their Master and King. And Jesus accepts their praise with gladness in His heart and gives them precious grace to hold up under that and anything else He decides to allow in their lives for His kingdom, for the gospel and for His glory, to the glory of God the Father. Why shouldn't that be YOU? Why not me?
I want to show you some passages in the bible that break my heart when I am having a pity party and refusing to praise God when in my deepest distress. It is the passages that talk about creation praising Jehovah God. First we'll recall what Jesus said to the Pharisees. It was the time when our Lord was riding on the donkey into Jerusalem and the crowds were singing and shouting His praise. Some of the Pharisees got angry about it and demanded that Jesus tell everyone to stop doing it. In Luke 19:40 Jesus says to them: "I tell you, if these become silent, the rocks will cry out"! Just think about that. It was so important that these people praise Him that if they didn't, the very ROCKS would do it in their place!! WOW! Incredible thought! It makes my heart leap every single time I read that or every time I talk about it to someone like my kindergarten class. Rocks would praise the King if people didn't! The bible has several passages about creation praising God. Psalm 96:11-12 says, "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains; Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy." 65:12-13 says, "The pastures of the wilderness drip, And the hills gird themselves with rejoicing. The meadows are clothed with flocks And the valleys are covered with grain; They shout for joy, yes they sing." 69:34 "Let heaven and earth praise Him, The seas and everything that moves in them." 98:7-8 "Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing together for joy." 150:6 "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!" Read the entire Psalm 148. I'll just give you the first 5 verses because they are so majestic: "Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens. Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him all His angels; Praise Him all His hosts! Praise Him sun and moon; Praise Him all stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He commanded and they were created." Is it not so humbling to realize that God's very creation praises Him and we who were made in His own image neglect that privilege so often? We are the only thing that God created in His own image. The holy angels never stop praising Him night and day. They will never know the joy of salvation or the feeling of being a child of the King. But we do. Those of us who are saved are the redeemed of the Lord. Yet look how often we don't bother to praise Him for His loving kindness towards us! As much as He must love the fact that creation praises Him, think of how much more He delights in hearing the songs of praise from the redeemed!! There is no comparison between creation and the redeemed of Jehovah offering up sacrifices of praise to the One who spoke and created the world! He is waiting for me to praise Him through the pain. Beloved, He is waiting for you too. I know it's hard sometimes. When life is kicking you every time you try to stand, or the pain in your body is so bad that you can hardly think of anything else. Maybe family ties are broken or there is such tension and strife in your home that there is rarely any peace. Maybe you lost your job and you don't know how you will pay your bills. Maybe your heart hurts because you feel unloved. Maybe if you're young you are suffering ridicule from other kids at school for your faith. Or it could be a thousand other things that keep you from lifting your hands to the heavens and offering a sacrifice of praise to the One who is worthy. Whatever your reason, whether it be anger, confusion, or pity over your circumstances, it is sin to harden your heart and refuse to praise your Savior. He deserves it and longs to see your worship. Sometimes things are so hard for me that I just can't see my way clear to praise my King. My heart can be so hard. There are times when I pity myself so much that there's no room for anyone else to join my party. So I let a day go by without thanking my Father for His goodness and blessings in my life. I don't bother to praise Him for His grace and mercy. And then I imagine myself at the Judgement Seat of Christ. And I behold the face of the One who suffered and died for me. And then He so lovingly says to me; "Dana my child, do you remember on November 25, 2009 when your body was hurting and you were also struggling with loneliness, and as a result you were feeling so sorry for yourself that you refused the prompting from the Holy Spirit to get on your face and praise Me? You were thinking about how hard your life was. Well, let me show you someone else, your sister in Christ that lived in a poor country where Christians were persecuted for their faith. On that same day, Nov. 25, she watched as her only child, a son who was 28 like your son, was tortured and then burned to death because neither him nor her would renounce Me. And the year before that, her husband had been put to death for the same reason. Dana, let me show you exactly what she did as soon as she got back to her grass hut that had nothing inside but a blanket and one single page from a bible." And then my King shows me a woman who has obviously had a rough life, kneeling on her blanket, with her hands lifted high in the air, her head turned up toward heaven, tears streaming down her face...her face that was like that of an ANGEL! And she was smiling through her tears and singing the most beautiful words of praise to her Savior and King! And she thanked Him for the grace and strength to endure and she asked Him for more opportunities to bless His heart. And then she ended with a single sentence that tied it all together: "Only glorify Your holy Name". Beloved, can you imagine my SHAME? Can you imagine how horrible that would be for me on that great day when I come face to face with the King of kings and Lords of lords?? I shudder to even think about it but I can imagine something like that will be the case. Why wouldn't He show us all the times when we could have and should have loved Him enough to praise Him but for whatever reason, just didn't? I can hardly bear to think about all the times when things are hard for me and I have the opportunity to praise His holy name, knowing that He sees me and everything I do and everything I think and feel. Knowing that my praise is a sweet smelling aroma to Him and that my offerings of worship to my Master are precious in His sight! And yet I somehow feel justified to withhold my praise because holding onto my anger or pity means more to me at the time than my love for my Savior. Have you ever been in that situation? I think most of us have at one time or another. It is such sin and I know that one day when we stand before our LORD, that we will regret every single one of those times. NOTHING will seem justifiable to us then...nothing! Oh merciful Father, for the grace to not pile one more day of guilt onto my life. God I pray this for all of Your redeemed. Your mercy and grace are available to us in abundance! May we plead at the throne of this great grace to praise You and extol Your holy Name in ALL things. And Lord, I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.
Precious ones, the next time, maybe even today, when you are faced with trouble and pain and you are at the crossroads of the choice to wallow in that pain or praise God in the midst of it, for the sake of Jesus, choose praise!