SPIRITUAL GROWTH ENHANCERS
My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendour all day long. Psalm 71:8
WHAT YOUR MOUTH IS FILLED WITH, MATTERS
Some people's mouths are full of gossips, profane, food, negativity and curses. David said his mouth was full of Praise. What your mouth is full of, matters.
"You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Matthew 12:34 ESV
How can we praise God when our hearts are filled with ingratitude? How can we praise God enough when our mouths are choked with the food we get to eat than the knowledge of the one who supernaturally provided the food that we get to eat?
And how can we glorify His holy name when we glory in ourselves thinking the food we put on our table and the shelter is my own making?
The New Living Translation renders it this way:
"You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say."
Gratitude is good, but when your attitude is not good you cannot show gratitude. Praising God and confessing His awesomeness is our means of expressing our gratitude to Him.
If your heart is full of bitterness your mouth will spill out the bitterness and not praise God. You cannot give what you don't have. You determine what you have.
What you don't have you don't determine. Your heart determines what your mouth speaks. What your heart do not determine your mouth cannot say because what your heart is full of will automatically spell out through your mouth.
Why don't we choose to praise God with our mouths and tell him of his greatness and let others know of His great grace and goodness as we go about our daily activities?
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD
Difficult moments, PRAISE GOD
Quiet moments, PRAISE GOD
Painful moments, PRAISE GOD
Every moment, PRAISE, WORSHIP AND THANK GOD!
David was praising God every day for His goodness and wonderful works done in his life. His mouth was full of praises and admiration for God's 24/7 security, provision, favour, mercy and grace that is bestowed upon him on daily basis.
David's enemies could not cut off his destiny because of the protection of God upon his life. Nothing could hinder his heart from offering praises to God. He was unstoppable. He praised and thanked God every day. His mouth was always telling God how glorious, beautiful and majestic He is.
Just like David, our heavenly father has always been providing for us and preserving our lives from dangers. We have been entering our public transports and private vehicles every day to anywhere we want to go. While others meet the severe injuries and death of their life by motor or road accidents, we always return home safe and sound.
We seldom thank him, we seldom praise him because we always don't seem to realise that anywhere we go and anything we do has been the Lord God Almighty behind the scenes showing us mercies and preserving our lives.
Many people go to sleep and were the end of their life on earth.
They don't wake up to see another daylight again. They just died suddenly in their sleep. But you always sleep and wake up safe and sound, hello is that your making? Between night and day, a lot of evil things goes around us while we still lie down lifeless sleeping.
Between day and evening, a lot of evils encompasses us in all our endeavours but we still pass through the day and night hours safe. We go about our normal activities like going to work, school or anything we want to do without remembering our Lord Jesus who gives us grace, protection and mandate.
A lot of Christians today don't even pray at night before day sleep. And oh yes, they even forget to pray and thank God for another day. They don't pray to commit their life and daily activities in the care of the Holy Spirit before they set off to wherever they want to go and anything they want to do.
They're just vulnerable to the kingdom of darkness to launch an evil attack on them anytime. Yet, the mercies of God still preserve their souls.
It is not even shocking to admit that we still have Christians who don't say a word of prayer and thanksgiving before they eat. They're quick to fill their mouth with food than to praise the one who supplied them with the strength to work for that food they want to enjoy.
As children of God, we should learn to praise and tell God of His goodness and the wonderful works He does in our lives and we should continue doing this throughout the day and just before we sleep.
The reason is that God is happy when we praise and worship Him as His beloved children. God is welcomed and celebrated when we praise Him as saints.
"But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel" Psalm 22:3
What the writer of the psalm seems to be saying is that God is present and glorified when His people lift His name in honour. God enjoys it. He draws nearer to us when we praise Him. When we pray, our pray goes to God. But when we singing, dancing and praising God, He also comes down to us.
So He indwells (inhabits) the praises of His people. We are His people and our job is to offer praises to Him every blessed day of our life.
The importance of praising God has been mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Praising God means telling or otherwise expressing how wonderful and great we believe God is and how much we love Him.
When Should We Praise God?
Psalm 148 tells us the sun, moon, and stars praise God (verse 3), as do the angels, sea creatures, flying birds, and ocean depths (v. 2, 7, 10).
Just because we cannot see just what God is saving us from, we vent our foolish reproaches; if we could see this, we would often kneel and thank God for certain trials as the richest of His mercies.
Indeed, the psalms indicate anything intended to honour God is considered praise, even battles and vengeance against other nations (Psalm 149:6-9).
We are to praise God always and in all circumstances whether in plenty or with nothing, in health or sickness, in strength or weakness.
David David never praised God when things are good with him only. He was praising God in all the circumstances of his life because he believed sole heartedly in his God and knows that no situation is permanent.
His God is capable of preserving his life and bringing him out of any situation that will confront him.
If God could protect his life from the evil forest tending his father's flock, bring down Goliath dead before him, deliver him from Saul and guide him to the kingship, then he got no reason not to praise and adore his God in all circumstances.
The Psalmist book is written to the “director of music” and set to the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” It is meant to be sung, scholars believe, an art form David held in high regard as a way to lift the name of the Lord and honour Him. In this reminder that God does indeed “inhabit the praise of His people,”
David is thought to be reminding Himself that He is to praise God in all circumstances, even when things seem hopeless. Come on and is that not what we ought to be doing as God's children and as Christians as we are privileged to be today?
Praising God means telling or otherwise expressing how wonderful and great we believe God is and how much we love Him.
This can be done with words—such as through prayer, singing, or dancing—or other modes of expression, such as freewill donations and lovesome offerings to support the work of God in the local Church.
We are always to praise God, in good times and bad. In his letter to the early church in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul reminds Christians to “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
The apostle Peter says,
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Let somebody praise the Lord. Let somebody shout praise the Lord. Come on somebody shout hallelujah!
Hallelujah is our heavenly language and it is as an expression of praise, worship or rejoicing. Continue to praise God, shalom!
OASIS WORDBANK/SOCIAL MEDIA MINISTRY COMMAND
