DAILY HOPE DEVOTIONAL: DECEMBER 15 BLESSING GOD THROUGH PRAISE SCRIPTURE: Psalms 16: 7; Matt. 5: 2-11
In the early days of my Christianity I used to be shocked when an ordinary person says “God I bless you.” My take then is how can a mortal man blesses God? I understood “bless the Lord then as one giving valuable things to God, or, making God holy with words of prayers._ As I matured in Christianity I began to see scriptures with statements of blessing God. For instance, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel… (Psa. 16: 7).” “Bless the LORD, O my soul” (Psa.104: 1).
Biblically speaking, a mortal man can bless God. This does not talk about giving material things to God in order to make Him richer or looks better. God is so rich and wealthy that He should look towards human beings to bless Him physically, materially, financially even spiritually.
The only way human beings can bless God is by praising Him and giving Him thanks. Pastor Andrew Wommack talked about how one of his sons, called Peter, made him very happy one night when he went to their room to bid them good night. Peter told his father “You’re a good Dad.” This word sounds simple, isn’t it? But to Andrew Wommack, he said the word made his heart jumps up and down and did flip-flops. When the Scripture admonishes us to bless the Lord, the Scripture is just saying we should speak good words to God. These are expressions that will make Him happy. These expressions are easily made through praise.
Most places where the Scripture talks about the word “bless” it uses a Hebrew word that means “happy”. This is the word Jesus used in His Beatitude in Matthew 5: 2-11; such as the phrases “bless are the poor”; “bless are the meek”; “bless are the merciful” and others. What Jesus meant in all is “happy are the poor”; “happy are the meek”; and “happy are the merciful” respectively. By application, when we say therefore, “Bless the LORD O my soul and forget not all His benefits” as in Psalms 103: 2 we are telling our souls to think things which will make God happy by not forgetting all His benefits extended to us.
The best ways to bless or make God happy as Christians is by giving Him quality praise. God is blessed or became happy by us expressing our love and worship in praise unto Him. Praising God exalts Him. When we tell God we “magnify Him we are directly blessing Him as that makes Him happy. As mention earliest, praising God involves other things apart from singing in praises and worship tunes. Expression of thanksgiving and telling God how great He is to us is the same as praising Him. All through our life time as Christians, we should remember to be telling God “Father let your name be exalted”; “Father, I lift your name on high”; “Father, you are higher than the highest” etc. Pastor John Piper said such expressions give God His “proper recognition.” God indeed feels happy when we give Him His proper recognitions.
PRAYER:
JEHOVAH FATHER, my desire in life is to be doing things that will give you joy in heaven. But I can’t do that by my efforts, kindly give me grace to do good things in Jesus name.
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