The following is a post from my old blog that continues to get feedback. Based on all the interest, I am reposting it here, and welcome your responses as well:
OK, here’s an easy question… or is it? Why should we praise God? Maybe a part of that question should be what does it mean to praise God? And if you really want to get personal, why do you praise God?This can go a lot of ways, feel free to take it any way you want to. — Pastor Norm
I want to thank you for your comments.At the beginning of this year the Lord gave me a verse
“Psalm 71v14 “I will hope contually, and I will praise you yet more and more.”
I’m not sure why this is going to be important this year but I know he is wanting him to praise him and to do that through everything I am doing.Your comments have been very helpful
If there are no other reason to praise God it must be that He deserves it. On the other hand, we were created for His praise. That is why God made us – think about it. We were created for His pleasure. Therefore, when we praise God, we are giving Him delight and we are fulfilling what we were designed for. It’s that simple. We can give thanks for all the other things, which many people have alluded to in earlier posts, but remember, while we give thanks for so many good things, God showers both the good and the bad with good things. We acknowledge the God who sends us these good things, but praise goes much further than that. Praise is humility before God, servitude, utter yielding to His will and living every moment in His presence. We praise him with our words, our song, our hearts and minds, our body and our soul. He longs to hear our praises because we are His creation and when we do these things we are now in tune with our creator. That is what we were designed for and how we must live.
“Thank you Jesus for showing us a life that was full of praise and unity with the Father. Help me to follow you through the day so my thoughts and actions may bring pleasure to the One who created me. Amen.”
I have appreciated reading all the comments here today.
I am still learning to praise God in all things. I know more and more that life is all about Him, He is in control, He is trustworthy, He knows and it is okay that I don’t.
I am so thankful that He is Who He is.
Such beautiful hearts are revealed in this thread!
My heart is prone to believe lies. Sometimes when I am hurt or upset I will talk to myself about someone else, I will even have a conversation with them in my head. Their side of the conversation is held by me and, because of my personal outlook at that point, “they” will respond in ways that give me greater reason for my self righteous anger. At that point, I am not at all objective or merciful or loving. I am condemning.
When I do not understand God or what He is doing, I am prone to the same type of attitude. Yet He calls me to praise Him. What a great blessing! What a great protection for my heart! In praise, I speak or sing or write the truth about Him…the things that I know in my head are true but I do not, at that moment, experience as truth in my heart. As I sing out truth, it reveals anew these truths to my heart. Instead of meditating upon all that seems wrong or evil, or the lies that I am prone to believe, I am meditating upon Truth. This protects me from my natural inclinations of self righteousness, self pity, self absorption, condemnation of others, and pride. He is so wonderful to have given us this gift! He deserves our praise and adoration and we do not deserve a reward for doing what is right, yet He gives us one! He rewards us for doing what is right… I just can’t get over that. What an amazing God we serve!
It is imperative that we understand the God factor, because we need to know that praising Him has everything to do with us. Praising God is not defined the same way we praise each other. God does not need our praise, but when we do, it helps with the building process of our relationship with God, it is part of the process of Sanctification, everyday depending on Him for guide, protection, maintenance of structure in our lives.
My husband and I are going on retreat this weekend and we are to speak to our group about Praise and Worship. While I was googling Praise, I came across this thread. I will stop here as I do not need to go any further. I think I have found what I needed, Thanks Jill.(and all the others on this thread) May God bless you.
Please keep us in your prayers this weekend.
Myriam
This sounds a lot like what David did in the psalms, he acknowledges the pain and the crap, but then lifts his heart and mind to the Lord. This line will still with me today… It is what we should do for Him, but it is good for us too.
I am still learning about praising God…
I have been going for counselling again.
God is healing me from some more pain from my childhood.
He connected me with the perfect counsellor who was trained in the area I need help, before I even knew I needed her. God is Good!
At the end of one appointment she said to me and my friend who accompanies me, “do not talk about this on the way home, it has been very traumatic today, let it go for a bit if you can, put on some praise music and sing to Jesus, look to Him”
So we get in the car and my friend is driving. I am looking at the streets and buildings but they seem far away. I am in shock and the pain is unbelievable, all these thoughts are whirling in my head and I see that I am getting lost in it. I feel as if I will crack open and all of me will be lost…
What to do… help… what did she say? Sing praises. . . sing praises? right, Jesus, help me… and I start to sing “Evening and morning and noon will I pray and cry aloud and He will hear my voice (repeat) He has delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me, as for me I will trust in God and the Lord will save me and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and noon will I pray and cry aloud and He will hear my voice.”
This is a song that I have known for years, after this another song came and another.
They pointed me out of my head -out toward God and Truth and healing.
Praising God is good. It is what we should do for Him, but it is good for us too.
Hi,
We Praise God for creating this huge universe yet everything is in order. Look at our selves, look at our veins, brains, hands, and heart, everything is working in so order that we are alive and every organ of our body is developed in such a way that we are alive and capable of doing everything. For that reason We should praise our God, who had created us. Without God, we would not be what we are now.
Praise God for reason, that we can not see him but still he is with us. Praise God for him being the King of Kings in this universe. Praise God for creating the Air we breathe in. Praise God for creating the water we drink. Praise Lord for making the minds which led to great inventions.
For example- Albert Einstein. We Praise him because he had invented nuclear power, theory of relativity, and for him being a great mind of this world. That is why we praise him. I praise God for creating Him.
We praise to God for creating minds which led us to drive cars and making our lives much easier. God is everywhere with us, it is what we should be not only thankful to God, we Should also Praise God.
God is no Gender, him or her, God is no Color, red or black or white, or brown, God is not Air, God is not water, God is not born or death, God is not Fear or suptersitious, God is beyond all these, God is the creator of us all, God is love, Love is God, God is forgiveness, God is everywhere. For these Reasons we Should Praise God.
God is in everywhere, God is in every small particle of Atom. God had created so many solar systems, so many earths, so many moons, so many good people, so many great researchers, so many good cures for deadly diseases. For that Reason we Should Praise God.
God deserves not only Praise but also deserves that we should spread this message across and let know of those people who are not awareness of this huge creativity.
I salute and Praise God because who was not born,
I salute and Praise God who has no Dress,
I salute and Praise God who has no Body,
I salute and Praise God who has no Color,
I salute and Praise God who has no fear,
I salute and Praise God who ca not be conquered and who can not be destroyed. He can never be created and nor be destroyed just like Enery Law. God is energy itself, energy can never be destroyed and nor it can be created, although it can transforms in to one form to another but yet it stays with us all the time.
For all these Reasons that is why we should Praise God.
I praise God because is beyond all the fears, and God of all the three worlds.
I love God, and I praise God for being the the creator and creating me and loving me and helping me everytime get up whenever I fall.
I love you God.
I love you God, and I love you always. I praise you God and I always will Praise you.
Sukhjinder Singh
I like reading these comments. I am learning a lot and also trying to follow some of the suggestions. I can also tell you that I have experienced joy in more and different ways this past season because of it. Praise God……again!
Wow!
It is almost 2 years since Norm asked this question. It is interesting to read over the things that I have written.
Choosing to praise, to turn outward from myself to Him is so important.
My understanding about God has changed so much since this topic began. I am not the same person… I trust Him more, I love Him more, I want a relationship with Him more. The more I get to know Him the more I want to praise Him for His sake.
I still have times when I don’t want to praise, when I want to be independant, when I am struggling and don’t invite Him into it.
But overall I am much more tuned in to Him than tuned out.
I appreciate the thoughts all of You who wrote here.
-the difference between praise and thanksgiving
-being in His courtyard
-and Jonathans encouragement
God, You are amazing! You are awesome! I delight in You like You delight in me. (Zeph.3:17) That feels wierd to say -‘I delight in You like You delight in me.’ but it is true. Part of praising You is knowing how You feel/think about me. . .and I am grateful and thankful and happy… This looks like it is all about me again and not about You but that is not true. It is about us together in a relationship. It is not asking or wanting anything right now. It is being with You. You are awesome! I praise You! I love You!
Praise ushers us into safe realms in His kingdom courtyard.
So much of our lives are in praise to other things around us – praise for our own accomplishments, praise of others, praise for our own comforts, our own families our own … everything.
But when we praise God, we walk into his courtyards and the darkness of the kingdom of this world disapates as we enter into His presence. Something always healing and good happens when we are in His presence!
Unfortunately, we are strange creatures and we turn and walk out of His courtyard and into the darkness again and forget what we had learned in His presence.
Lord, help me stay in your presence and to learn from you. Yes, help me leave your courtroom, not alone but with Your presence with me to guide me.
I’m a Vineyard worship pastor in Myrtle Beach South Carolina and currently teaching on the power of Praise. I ran across this website googleing (if that’s a word) ‘praise’. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and contributions. I had the chance to work alongside Rebecca St James and Casting Crowns a while back, and one thing Mark Hall would say night after night was ‘Praise is the chance to go before God in prayer without asking Him for anything’. One Vineyard pastor commented that praise is like a mist, or a fog that rises and settles. As we send our praises up, God sends the Holy Spirit down with his presence.
If we look at King David and ask ourselves ‘what does it mean to me to be a man (or woman) after Gods own heart’? and also ask ourselves ‘what does that person look like’? we find praise to be a theme embedded into the center of his relationship with God. And we find the fruit of his praises manifested in the effectiveness of his spiritual leadership.
My favorite story of praise is when Paul and Silas praise God in jail, and God’s presence is so strong it shatters the chains binding them to their jailcell. I look at that and have so say wow. That’s the true power of praise flowing through the life of God’s anointed.
I’m excited to see that this blog thread is still alive after almost two years. It’s very encouraging to me as a worship pastor to see groups people thinking deeply about why we praise God.
without him things would be a whole lot worse……………amen’
A definition of Christian praise is: The joyful thanking and adoring of God, the celebration of His goodness and grace
There is a difference in THANKS and PRAISE. Thanksgiving describes our attitude toward God for what He has done for us. PRAISE is offered for WHO He is. Praise comes from a heart full of love for God.
http://www.brow.on.ca/Sermons/Praise.htm
If we only realized how much God does for us – so much more than we realize, so much that we take for granted – we would not/could not cease to say THANK YOU! If nothing else, praise opens our eyes to begin to appreciate all that God is/does for us.
I think of our children. Do they know and appreciate everything we do for them? So much of what they take for granted, stuff that they do not even realize, is a part of our love for them. And it sure is nice when they say “thank you”, its a delight when they come to you and express appreciation.
Thanks Eloretta…
I praise God for several reasons. The fact that He has taken away my sins and has transformed my life is wonderful!!! Therefore He deserves my praises. When I look around at human beings, God has made man in fine style, nature also shouts loudly about God’s handiwork. How can I not praise God? God is the God of variety, creativity and provision. I have experienced God in so many ways that I have been learning to praie Him in everything-the good times and the bad times as well. I find that when I praise God I am more at peace, I am joyful and burdens are lifted. Praising God also makes us feel better and look better. We praise our children for good behavior, good work etc.God has been so merciful towards us, He’s daily loading us with blessings, some of which we take for granted. God is deservng of our praises not only from our lips but from our lives. When we offer praises blessings saturate us. Trust me, whenever we praise God we benefit so much, because God delights in our praises.
Wow, Jill, you are a one-person praiser! This is awesome, and a challenge to the rest of us reading this to answer this question ourselves. Just that you know, this link is one of the most read comments on the page!!! As site administrator I can see how people come to this blog, and where they look. People are looking up “why praise God” on the internet and finding this link. So be encouraged, even if no one is responding, a lot of people are reading it.
TO THE REST OF US, LETS HELP JILL WITH ANSWERING THIS QUESTION, WHY PRAISE GOD!
me again….
Another reason to praise God.
I was reading a booklet called Dealing With Offence by Albert Zehr. It is a valuable lesson on forgiveness and not taking offence -or at least not carrying the offence when the Holy Spirit shows us it is there.
I had some personal house cleaning to do (Praise God for His forgiveness).
Here is a quote
{Saturation in the Word and Worshipping Helps Us Resist Offence (Psa 1:2-3; 119:165) David knew the help God gives when reading His Word and worshipping Him. David expressed it so well in Psalm 119:165 when he said, “Great peace have they that love Thy law and nothing shall offend them.” The Apostle John tells us that if we live in light there is no tendency to stumble (1 John 2: 10). As we saw earlier, offence involves a challenge or threat to the self. Jesus touched on this matter in Matt 16:24 ff. “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up His cross and follow Me.” A particular way in which we can deny ourselves is by not taking offence, or by forgiving the person who offended us, whether they apologize or not. 1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us that trials can effect and refine our faith as gold so that we may be proved genuine. If we parallel this with Rev. 3:18 where we are told to buy gold, we see that denying self, not avenging ourselves and freely forgiving, can be a way of buying gold. Once our self and ego has been crucified, the tendency of offence is greatly diminished. Have you noticed that while in deep worship our belief in God’s sovereignty is clear and everyone seems loveable. As we live in a constant state of worship we will find that offence has little chance to take root in our lives.}
http://www.comfortfortoday.com/longart/803eng.htm
This is a long article but well worth the reading (and application)
Praise God.
Jill, thanks again for allowing Jesus to speak through you!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why should we praise God?
Because sometimes it is the only thing ‘to’ do….
-when I am full of questions about why God is letting what is happening happen,
-when my illnesses flair up again and I am not able to drive or do my work or sometimes can’t even think straight!
-when I am seeing suffering in peoples’ lives and it hurts to watch them hurt,
-when people in authority are making bad decisions that are negative in my small world and/or in the world at large,
-when I see sin in myself,
-when the thing that I thought God wanted me to do is changed and the new thing He calls me to do seems so hard…..
The only thing to do is praise God.
Which I am doing today. I praise Him because He knows what He is doing! To me illness is a waste of time, apparently to Him it is not….
To me seeing people suffer is awful, but it is to God too, yet I trust /praise Him that He knows what He is doing with them… He is big enough for them.
I praise God that He can make good come out of bad decisions. He still is in control of the world.
I praise Him because He forgives my sin, over and over and He changes me.
I praise Him because He knows what He wants me to do and therefore will equip me to do it.
I praise You God because You are God, Lord of creation, Master of the universe, Inventor of everything, and You truly know all ….
I praise you because I am your small child and I can trust You.
Thanks for sharing this perspective. So often we are trying to fit God into our lives, but like you say, praise is fitting our lives into God, seeing ourselves in the bigger picture, orienting ourselves to the TRUE NORTH. Its like that saying,
“Don’t tell GOD how big your problems are. Tell your PROBLEMS how big your God is!”
Praise God… also known as “magnifying” or “exalting” God!
Me again…. still on the Why Praise God topic.
God brought the rain of healing water to my desert and the feelings of wanting to praise have come back. Thank-you God.
I am still praising…… still learning the importance of praise.
Praise still gets my thoughts off myself and onto Him. This is important when I am struggling because instead of trying to draw God into my situation, to get Him in here with me…. I learned that when I praise God I am looking out of wherever I am -towards Him, and seeing the bigger picture. I am not saying: God get in here! I am saying God I am coming to You out there. You are awesome and trustworthy. I want to see how You see things not how I see them…..
Of course there are many other reasons to praise God -not just when I am struggling.
We just visited the Rocky Mountains..I can praise Him forever about them!!
Praise Him for friends & family, for people being saved, for repentence, for laughter, for spiritual/emotional healing, for many good things and for many bad things that turn us towards Him….
Praise Him for Who He is -Lord of Lords and King of Kings! ASTOUNDING!
I’m still thinking about why we should praise God. .. (it would be nice to get more feed back….)
I continue to sing praises every morning whether I feel like it or not. I try to pay attention to the words and only sing them if I mean them.
I am going through a desert time and God feels far away so there not much joy in me right now. ..but I keep trying to choose to believe in God’s Goodness and all the great things that I know to be true about Him.
I do Praise God for He is Awesome and Amazing and worthy of all Praise.
Praise Him helps me to fucus on what is true and I am thankful.
I have been reading The Battle Belongs to The Lord by Joyce Meyer.
It is about “overcoming lifes struggles through worship”. It has been really helpful to me.
There are lots of reasons to praise God.
The most imporatant would be that He deserves it!
I have been learning to praise God first thing every day and also in all circumstances. Sometimes this is difficult. When I do praise Him it takes my thoughts off myself and onto Him. I say or sing the words that describe who He is and what He has done. This reminds me of what God is like and enables me to trust Him. So praising is not just for God -it is for me too.
Last evening I had a good example of this. I had been angry for 2 days. Angrier than I have ever been in my whole life. So angry my whole body hurt … So angry I wanted to throw rocks through windows or smash things… So angry I was afraid of myelf, of what I might say or do. I could not make myself seek God except to say a few times God help me. My husband prayed for me.
So I went to our weekly ministry time where we spend the first 45 minutes singing. (It took a huge effort just to get there as I did not want to talk to anyone.) When the worship began I did not want to sing or praise. I just sat there listening. As often happens during worship time God began touching my heart. I saw that even though this issue that I am struggling seems bigger and harder than anything I have ever dealt with, God is bigger. I still do want to serve Him. I want to trust Him. I know that He can enable me to walk through this. I determined to praise Him even though I was still so angry. He was more important than the anger. So I lifted my arm to acknowledge agreement with the words being sung… eventually I walked to the front to get a flag to wave, to worship my God -Who is awesome and amazing. I was not able to actually sing the words out loud but I put my whole body into praisng Him, later I knelt -to give Jesus the struggle, and to ask for help. I came home more peaceful than I went.
Is the anger gone? No, infact I don’t want it to be gone until I process the reasons. I am going to begin doing that today with help from qualified people. I have been stuffing this anger a long time…. but the anger is more managable today.
Right now I am going to sit at the piano and pick out some songs with one finger and praise my God Who is so great as to have created the entire universe and so great that He is interested in a personal way in each individual in this universe.