Psalm 135:1-3 "Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the name of the LORD; praise him, O ye servants of the LORD. (2) Ye that stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God, (3) Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant."
Would you agree with me that faith is one of the greatest among the gifts that
accompany our salvation. We are told in Ephesians chapter 2, that faith is the
gift of God. It is not something that we naturally have within ourselves. We
know that, for in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, we are told that "all men
have not faith." Faith in God, who we have never seen, is not
something that our natural mind can have, much less exercise. But when
the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and fills our minds, we are given the
ability to believe that God is indeed the only true and living God. We have
faith to believe that this universe was created simply because of His sovereign
power to speak the word and light, sun, earth, moon, stars, and all living
things were created into existence. By faith we believe and rejoice that God
took the very dust of the earth, formed man, and then breathed the breath of
life into his nostrils. We are able to believe that God took a rib from Adam
and created a woman who was indeed a help that was proper and good for him. She
wasn't only a help to him, she completed him because God created Eve perfectly
and brought her to Adam. Those are wonderful blessings that allow us to
live a wonderful life; but, the greatest blessing of all was when the Son of
God took upon Himself flesh and came to this earth, born of a virgin. We
are given faith to believe and rejoice in the fact that our Lord Jesus went to
the cross to pay the total price to redeem us unto the Father. We are in the
family of God because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.
What is our response to all these things? "Praise ye the LORD.
Praise ye the name of the LORD; praise him, O ye servants of the LORD. Ye
that stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God,
Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it
is pleasant." The ability to praise the Lord is another of the
wonderful gifts that accompany our salvation. When our hearts and minds
are filled with praise and when we can confess that praise with our voices,
there is great victory in our lives. Praise drives the enemy away. Satan
cannot stand in the presence of our praise unto the Lord. And on the opposite
end of that spectrum, praise allows us to stand even in the face of the enemy.
Praise reassures us that we belong unto the Lord and His love for us is
absolute.
May I ask, when was the last time you allowed praise to completely occupy your
very being? Has it been a while? You might say, "Life is just too
hard right now and I just don't feel like praising." May I say that
is the time that praise needs to come out of us all the more. Even if we have
to force it, praise will lift us out of the valley of darkness that may seem to
have us in its clutches. Praise opens the door for light to overcome
darkness. Let your praise unto God be heard today!