It’s Friday…Practice Gratitude and Praise

We sing when we’re happy – or whistle, or hum, or something that displays our joy. That’s because true joy can’t be easily contained. Neither can our other emotions. Whatever’s in us will eventually come out unless we make a huge effort to keep it in.

What Jesus did for us will make us extremely joyful if we really understand it. What He did for us satisfies those deep desires we have, and it promises eternal pleasure and peace. We scarcely realize now what it means to never have another worry again and to live in abundance forever and ever, but that’s the truth of the salvation Jesus offers. Though we were once destined for eternal futility, despair, and pain, we have been adopted into the King’s family and share in the inheritance of the favored Son. It’s the ultimate rags to riches story. That’s worth celebrating, a lot!

“Sing to The LORD a new song, His praise from the ends of the earth.”  (Isaiah 42:10)

Isaiah tells us to sing about it. In fact, we can hardly find any mention of praise in the Bible that does not involve some kind of sound or action. It’s almost never a quiet, internal experience. It’s done with shouts, cymbals, harps, trumpet blasts, dancing, palm branches, lots of food and drink, and much, much more. Our happiness should ooze from our being so irrepressibly that others can’t help but notice. Our lives should be saturated with gratitude and praise.

If our discouragement and depression are anything more than temporary setbacks, we don’t understand how thorough the salvation that Jesus offers is. We don’t see the big picture. People who have been rescued from the pit of despair and have been given the run of the palace don’t generally wrestle with moodiness. They celebrate because they get it. They have been extravagantly blessed for eternity.

In the coming days, let’s Practice Gratitude and Praise. Let’s take some deliberateness to do that, especially if we’re used to discouragement. It can be done – the more we give God thanks and praise for what He has done, the more real to us He becomes. And the more we’ll find ourselves singing, laughing, dancing, well, you get the picture.

Have a noisy weekend. Make it better by worshiping The LORD with those who like to sing to Him, not because they’re good at it, but because He receives it as good, really-good, especially when it comes from the heart.

All For Jesus – Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else.

“He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6:15b-16)