Psalm 18: 48 – 49 Passion
He rescues me from my enemies;
he lifts me up high and keeps me out of reach,
far from the grasp of my violent foe.
49 This is why I thank God with high praises!
I will sing my song to the highest God,
so all among the nations will hear me.
David certainly accomplished his goal. People from all nations, nations which didn’t even exist when he was living, have heard his songs of praise. His songs have spiritually fed generations of believers. That is really something.
The relationship between Yahweh and David was one of continual blessing. God blessed and delivered David. He routinely saved him from dangerous and aggressive enemies. David, in turn, famously lavished the Lord with high praise. Their relationship was one of giving and I imagine David is in heaven now with his lyre singing love songs to our Lord and God. What a beautiful picture.
The Lord has redeemed David forever and David is forever a king in the court of the Most High King. But then . . . cannot the same be said of us. We have been bought with a price, the price of an unblemished lamb who willingly shed its blood for us. We have been redeemed and our lives returned to glory status. The standing we were ordained to have in the beginning, before the fall of humanity, has been restored to us. Our enemies are but a footstool and all our needs have been met. We, then, are in a proper situation to continuously offer up thanksgiving and praise.
I do not find, however, that our culture is one of giving and praise, even to our God. Therefore, we are not being trained to be thankful and to articulate that thankfulness. We are not given to praise naturally or by cultural indoctrination, so we must admonish ourselves. We must purposefully set aside time to praise our Lord. We must intend, or purpose in our hearts, that praising the Father is a value to us. Then, we have to apply the necessary planning to our intent so that praise actually manifests. What am I saying? That we have to make a deliberate plan to praise our Father and then follow through with the appropriate action. As I have said, we are not being routinely taught and encouraged in this and it is not a natural flow from most of our cultures, so we have to make a decision that we wish to give the Father something in return for all of His great kindness and then do something about it. We cannot wait for the time to be right or even to “feel like it.” We must decide and then do it.
He, our Father, lives in our praises. He breathes them like you do air. He loves us but also longs for us to love Him in return. Wouldn’t it be great if, as a group of believers, we all started loving on Him more than we used to? How would it be if we all gave Him more praise in 2019 than we did in 2018. I know I have much more thanksgiving in my heart than I have spoken aloud. He has been good to me. I presume He has been good to you to. Let us purpose in our hearts that we are going to increase the praise in His throne room. Let’s bombard the throne room of grace with praise. Doesn’t that sound like fun?