Praise and God’s Love (Pt.4)

We are continuing our series on love which we had begun from the outset of this month. I trust God that this article will bless you. Share your opinion on the article by commenting on the blog post. God bless you as you do so.

The reason why God took time to create someone like you is not to add to the number of living souls on earth. But he created you for a reason and a purpose. This account for the reason why God took a special interest in you even to the very hairs of your head (Matt 10:30). It means that if a particular hair of your head falls off, God can say, hey that is number 25. He knows you even to the minutest details of your life. Why God took so much time in molding you that he numbered your hairs? Well, the answer to this question is found in one of the chapters of the bible.

Isaiah 43:21

This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.

Even your salvation is anchored on this very reason, to show forth the praise of him that has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

1 Peter 2:9

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

The scripture under reference captures the essence of our creation. But as men, we were born into sin from the belly so that purpose and intendment of our creation have been affected by sin. In order to fulfil this divine purpose of our creation, God set out a day where he would call us out of darkness to become children of light. That calling is your salvation and the reason for that is to praise him.

This is a practical article and I will come down to the things that hinder us sometimes from expressing our love for God through the power of praise.  While it is seemingly easy to lift up our hands to God in praise when all seems well – our bills are all paid up, the kids are in school, our health is sound, we got a promotion in our job, our families aren’t experiencing sorrows and all seems to work well.

Yet it is hard to express our love for God through the power of praise when things aren’t working as they should. When you are late on your mortgage, when there is nothing to eat, when your health has become the greatest prayer point that you pray every day, at such times, praising  God in fulfilment of the purpose of creation or the reason for living is a daunting challenge.

Interestingly, the bible tells us that if we pay attention to any of these things of life that come to assail our lives, we won’t be able to praise God.

Ecclesiastes 11:4

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

If you keep your eyes on the things that God hasn’t done or if you fix your eyes on the prayers that haven’t been answered, you can’t praise God. The more you think of it, the more you see reasons to securely lock your tongues in your mouth. The bible says if we regard the wind, that is what we are seeing with our eyes or feeling, then we can’t praise.

God had to tell me one day, “You need to master your emotions.”

Feelings are deceptive. It will tell you one million reasons not to praise God. If you learn to look beyond what you can see and hear, then you will be able to express your love for God in praises.

There is nothing as good as praising God for who he is. Not for what he has done or for what he has promised to do.

It is true that when you begin to praise God, you will feel like it is not worth it. Will it change my situation? You aren’t praising God because he has the capacity to change your situation, but for the God that he is to you.

When you praise God, you are reminding him of the time that he made you. That is the reason for which you were formed.

The Bible tells us that he inhabits the praises of his people. Praise to God out of true love will do for you what prayer might not be able to achieve. Now, I don’t mean that prayer doesn’t work. It does and I have seen many of my own prayers answered by the Lord. But when you praise to express the depth of your love to God, it moves God into action. It was not prayer that brought the wall of Jericho down, it was praise (Joshua 6:20). It was also not prayers that made the Israelites’ enemy to attack one themselves, it was praise (2 Chronicles 20:22).

Yet there are several things that can hinder us from expressing our true love to God in praise. One thing that hinders us from expressing our true love to God in praise is sin. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord are too holy to behold iniquity. No matter how hard you try, if there are issues of sin and iniquity in your life, God will not accept your praise. Sin will keep you away from expressing the depth of your love to God. When sin was seen in the life of Lucifer, now Satan, he lost his place in heaven. When it was found in the lives of Adam and Eve, they lost the garden. It is, therefore, necessary for us to purify ourselves so that when we express our love to God in praises, it will be accepted.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. If you can fully grasp this scripture, then the way you praise God will definitely change. I am not referring to being scared of God. What I mean here is a reverence for God. David was regarded as one of the greatest men that expressed his love for God through the power of praise. In the book of Psalms, David was very poetic about who God is to him. I believe that the ability to imagine deeply also helped King David to express the depth of his love for God. When you take a walk into the woods or to the mountains and see the beautiful cascading waters, what runs through your mind? For David, those amazing sceneries provoked his mind to praise God. I believe that the deeper we are in thought concerning the things that God has been done for us, the better we are able to praise him.

There is a connection between love and praise. It is when we praise God from the standpoint of love that his transformation power really works in us.