Growing up I always struggled with my weight, actually I still struggle with my weight. In High School I started lifting weights and get in pretty good shape. I had a really good friend and we would lift a couple times a week. In the winter time we would meet at my house and stoke the wood burner and set up the weights right in front of it and lift for about an hour or so. Of course we smelled really sweet after we were finished. Usually there was Bible Study afterward that we attended without taking a shower. (I couldn’t understand why no one wanted to sit next to me, lol.)
Anyway, by the time I got married I was in really good shape and pretty strong, in my mind. One of the things that we would yell at each other in lifting, “Come on you wimp, lift that weight.”
I had said last time that praise wasn’t for wimps. That it wasn’t for emotional people either. Praise was for people who were ready to go into the enemy’s camp and take back what he stole from us. God inhabits the praise of His people. Any kind of praise. I said that this blog we would talk about methods. Well, it really doesn’t matter the method, your culture, your tradition. There are different kinds of praise…quiet praise, jubilee praise, southern praise, northern praise, white praise, black praise, even Buckeye praise. The point is whatever it is and however you do it, the point is that we need to do it because praise liberates the spirit. It frees the mind. It heals the soul. Praise causes you to ascend from the mundane elements of your physical surroundings and takes you into the powerful, awesome, pleasurable, peaceful, presence of God. You can be like John on the Isle of Patmos and still be in the presence of God. You see it doesn’t matter who handcuffs you. It doesn’t matter what cave you are in. you can still transcend into the awesome presence of God. When you don’t praise God you are missing being in His presence and His power.
Pediatrics of Praise
If you are going to praise God effectively you must become verbal. Your God is a speaking God. When you read John 1 it says, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God.” He spoke this world into existence. The psalmist says that He sent His word. When the centurion asked Jesus to come and heal his servant he said, “All you need to do is speak the word.” The power of life and death Peter says is in your tongue. What we have to realize is that God is a speaking God. David says, “I will bless the Lord at all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall maker her boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear thereof and be glad O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.” God wants you to speak to Him because He is a speaking God. He is a Word God. He wants a word to come out of your mouth. This has nothing to do with your emotions. In Psalm 22:1-5 David tells of all the adversities that have come against him. How his bones are disjointed. He concludes by saying, “Yet I will praise the Lord.” In the midst of a night situation he talks about praising God. He’s talking right in the night.
Most of us, when we talk to God in the night of our lives we talk about the night. But talking to God about the night will not provoke the light. What we need to do is stand in the night of our lives and talk to God about who He is, not what you’re going through. That’s nagging. To get into the night of life and talk to God about them is comparable to being married to a nagging woman. Men detest a nagging woman.
Women it is a known fact that you out talk us. We hate that. When you out talk us we out walk you. You win the talking we win the walking. We leave and go wash the car. It doesn’t matter if we just came in from washing the car. We just want to escape. Nobody wants to come home to hear somebody rehearse what’s wrong. Well, neither does God. He doesn’t want to inhabit your argument. He inhabits praise, not problems. Praise not pain. Praise not disgust. When you praise Him it attracts Him. Who couldn’t come to somebody who praises them?
I think we’ll end there. How about until I post again you spend some time watching what you say. Are you praising God more than nagging Him? He inhabits Praise. There’s power in praise. I encourage you to praise Him in your night experiences. Until next time,
Love, Pastor Rob
