What does it mean to you when you read these words of David, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” (Ver. 1)? Do you realize that the meaning and experience of praising the Lord is exactly the same for you today as it was for David who wrote these words thousands of years ago. The reasons we praise God for who He is should never change because He never changes. What changes is how we experience who God is because our relationship with Him, which should always grow and become more intimate. The level of intimacy we praise God will always depend on our constant personal relationship with Him and how much we accept and submit to His Word and what it commands for our lives.
Praising the Lord is not done with just the words that come out of our mouths. David points out very clearly, he tells us in this same verse that we praise the Lord with our “soul” or “inmost being”. We need to ask ourselves, “is this the way I praise the Lord”? Even though I am not an emotionally expressive person by nature, through my personal experience I have learned that praising the Lord with “my soul” or “my innermost being” is not a loud emotional outburst with a lot of screaming and shaking, but it is referring to the source of my praise. The more intimately I know and experience God in my life, the more I have to draw from “my soul” or “my inmost being” to express when I praise Him.
The next thing that David points out is that we “praise his holy name”. This does not mean we repeatedly say, “I praise Your name God”, “I praise Your name God”. Through our experience of praising Him we learn this means we are acknowledging who God is and praise Him for how we have experienced who He is in our relationship with Him.
The first moral attribute of God which most theology books list is the God is holy. What does this mean? “The basic idea of Holiness, as applied to God, is that of separation and exaltation, absolute perfection of character”. – Foundations of Pentecostal Theology. Most Christians are familiar and often state that God is love, but, “Far more mention is made in Scripture of God’s Holiness than of His All-power, Wisdom and Omnipresence combined. The Scriptures establish the Holiness of God long before they picture His Love”. – Foundations of Pentecostal Theology. How often do you acknowledge the holiness of God when you praise Him?
In verses 2 to 5, David gives six more reasons why we praise the Lord. He starts out by pointing out the source of our praise in verse two. “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” In verse one David acknowledges in his praise who God is and now in verses two to five he lists six of the “benefits” and some results of having a relationship with God that we should be praising Him about.
a) 3 who forgives all your sings b) and heals all your diseases, c) 4 who redeems your life from the pit d) and crowns you with love e) and compassion, f) 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. After reading this list of only six of the many reasons we can praise God, we must realize if we do not maintain a constant personal relationship with God in prayer, praise and in submission to His Word, we will find it difficult to realize and incorporate just these six points in our time alone with God. Our incorporating these points when we praise God obviously is not only limited to when we are worshiping at church. These six points for praising God should be an expression of the reality of how we are experiencing Him in our relationship. It is necessary for us also to know other verses from His Word that express the reality of these points that we have experienced. As a result our praise will become more detailed and expressive.
As believers in Christ we have the advantage of looking back at the cross of Jesus and His victory over death by His resurrection. David did not have this blessing and reality in his life to look back on as we do. But in spite of this he still could praise God for the very things we have experienced in our lives and praise God because of the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The following six questions relate to the six points of praise in verses 3-5.
a) How are you blessed because your sins are forgiven? Romans 4:7-8, 7 “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
b) How have you experienced God’s healing? Remember healing is also mental and emotional. Hebrews 9:14, How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
c) What would your life look like if it had not been redeemed and converted by Christ? Ephesians 4:22-24, 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
d) What are the many ways you experience God’s love in your life? 1 John 2:5-6, 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. Ephesians 3:17-19
e) Is it easy for you to recognize God’s compassion in your life? 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
f) What has God blessed you with for your enjoyment that is not financial or material? 1 Timothy 6:17-18, 17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Pastor John
