“Praise Him According To His Excellent Greatness!”

Did you know that praising God is one of the best ways we can show our love and appreciation for Jesus. (Psalm 50:23) tells us: “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me…” And glorifying Jesus is the best way I know of to please our Heavenly Father.

One of the greatest insights the Lord revealed to me about praise is contained in (Psalm 150:2). Many years ago, while I was reading this verse the Lord spoke to my heart and basically said to me: “Curt, don’t just praise me based on how you feel but based on who I am.” For we read in (Psalm 150:2): “Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!”

You see our feelings are fickle and they can change from moment to moment depending on the circumstances. So, if we go by our feelings we often just won’t feel like praising our Lord. However, Jesus always deserves our praises no matter how we feel because He is a great God. When (Psalm 150:2) says: “Praise Him according to His excellent greatness,” we begin to understand that praise has nothing to do with how we feel but on who God is and just how great He is. Since God is always great, He always deserves our praises.

When I learned this great insight, Satan tried to call me a hypocrite telling me that how can you praise God when you don’t really feel like it. This, however, is just one of his great lies. Let me explain. Say you have a three-month old baby and he has been up till two in the morning crying and crying. He finally falls asleep and you and your wife are dead tired being kept awake all night. Finally, all three of you fall asleep but fifteen minutes later your baby starts to really cry again. You turn to your wife and both of you realize that one of you has to check to see that your baby is OK. Now both of you are so tired and don’t “feel” like getting up but you do because your child may have something wrong. The point is you override your feelings because it’s just the right thing to do because you care and love your baby. So, it’s the same with God. He is so great that He always deserves our highest praises no matter how we feel.

Now don’t get me wrong it feels awesome when we praise God went we are feeling good. But praise is easy then. The real challenge is to praise God when we are feeling down. But, I believe, when we praise God then, He is really pleased because He knows we don’t feel like praising Him. Yet we override these down feelings because we understand that God is always worthy of our highest praises. It’s at these times that we really put a smile on His face because He sees how much we love Him.

One final observation on our feelings concerns the key way to change them when we are down and out. We read in (Isaiah 61:3) to put on “…The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” You see praising God is the great antidote to get you out of the doldrums. Praise will begin to put a smile on your face and lift your spirits even when you are feeling down.

My friends let’s strive to always please God and bring joy to His heart by always spending time in thanking Him and praising Him “according to His excellent greatness.”