Praise (Daily Devotional)

Welcome everyone. We're looking at the battle in Judges chapter four and five, again, a very, very interesting incident that took place is the song with which Deborah broke out right after the battle, that would be probably the last thing that you expect from her. But she's a prophetess, she instructed the chief commander at that time, but she also turned into something like a songwriter, and she began to sing. So, we read Judges chapter five which is really a poem and a song of Deborah and in that song, she praises God.

I want to read for us Judges chapter five and verse three, ‘Hear, O Kings! give ear, O princes! I, even I, will sing to the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel.’ Praise, people at that time knew the value of praise, praise is a verbal expression of our adoration, our thanksgiving, our rejoicing in who God is and praise is usually exuberant. In other words, we are able to express not just with our body with the words that we are speaking, but there is a sense of joy in our soul and our spirit rejoices. So, praise engages, praise involves our spirit, soul, and body and it's really a wonderful expression of our faith in God. Now praise is also an acknowledgement of God's greatness and God's goodness.

We've seen that in this battle, people strived, they worked hard, they didn't give up and yet they said that it was really God who subdued the enemy. And so, when they sang praises, you notice Deborah is giving God the glory, His greatness and His goodness is what she sings about. So, we too can praise God and honor God. And now here's the thing, praise must be proportional to the greatness of God. Now think about this, how great God is. If we begin to praise him maybe with a couple of songs and some music or something else that that we do for God, we can never really match up to His greatness. And that's why we have all these hymns that have been written where people say that if you use up all the ink, the waters in the ocean as ink, you would still not be able to describe the greatness of God. If we had 1000 tongues, we would still not be able to give God the praise and the honor and the glory that He deserves.

So, there's really so much scope for us to keep praising God because He is that great and we are encouraged. This is a spiritual act of worship. Praise is an act of the will, we can't push someone to praise from their hearts, but it comes out of a person's decision or in other words, it is a choice, praise is a choice, and it is a fruit of our lips. It is a spiritual sacrifice for us who are on the other side of the cross. So, what a privilege we have to praise God for the things that God has done. In this case they won a battle, and they were praising God for that. But in our lives, there is so much the Lord has done. Maybe we have experienced His wisdom, we've experienced His blessing. We could have gone through a rough patch but even in the midst of that we've experienced His peace- Shalom, Shalom, His perfect peace and the joy of the Lord, so many things that are really released to us because God is our God. So can we take a moment and just exalt and magnify the Lord because He's worthy of it.

Let's pray together, Heavenly Father, we pray that Lord, you will make us people who praise because people who praise are people of victory. God, let your praise always be on our lips in Jesus’s name. We pray Amen.

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