Thanks and Praise

We've been talking about thanking God, and I think thanks and praise go hand in hand. The things that we thank God for we should also be praising Him for, right? I know that seems like an impossible task. But I think the key is in knowing the character of God. 


If we use our example from Monday about the Ten Boom sisters and the fleas, then God could be praised for being all knowing, a protector, merciful, loving, a great planner, and those are just a few! 


So while for most it would be hard to say "Lord, I am praising you for these flees" it's probably easier (and more honest) to say "Lord, I'm praising you because you know best, because you are in control, because you have a purpose for this!" 


Praising God is such an important part of following Him and loving Him. We can see this in Romans 1:21 which says:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

So how do we glorify God? One way is to praise Him, and make His name known. If not we can end up in a place where we know God, but our hearts are darkened and we're living a life no different than the unsaved. I don't want that to be me! I want to be sure that since I know God, that I glorify Him as God. I want to have a pure heart before my Father and one of the ways that we can aim to keep our hearts pure, and full of light is to keep His praises on our tongues. 


So what are you praising HIM for this week?




My Praises:

• God's mercy, grace, righteousness, and forgiveness
• Seeing my girls play together nicely 
• Getting some of our laundry mountain tackled
• Watching Facing The Giants (that movie encourages me so much)
• Working with the teens at church
• God's provisions
• Listening to some great teachings on tough issues
• Having my parents watch the girls so we could help out at church
• Seeing my husband grow in different areas
• Belonging to a Bible believing church
• Having a great pastor and assistant pastor
• Our 17 month old still sleeping through the night