Jesus spoke against those who honored God with their lips but whose hearts were far from God. But did you ever wonder why someone would bother praising God whose heart was that distant anyway? To understand why, we need to understand what genuine praise (honoring God) means. Biblical praise means to think on the specific aspects of God’s character and nature and then to speak them out (look at Psalm 145 for an example). And when you begin to do that guess what happens? In the midst of authentic praise, we see God’s exalted condition, and suddenly our own condition becomes obvious as well. Throughout scripture, the closer God’s servants got to Him, the more wretched they seemed in their own eyes. That’s why people will choose surface level praise over the more difficult, heart exposing praise that Jesus calls us to. So why DOES God call us into authentic praise? Simple. Because it causes us to both look on, and to hunger for, the standard of righteousness that was lost when we rebelled against God, and in so doing, praise becomes the launching pad for real transformation in our own lives. God doesn’t bless our praise because HE needs it; He blesses it because in praise we simultaneously place the true standard of before our eyes, while rejecting that which is defective and broken about ourselves.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 02:25:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015