Our Praise Makes A Big Impact
Living a life of praise is not only the most enjoyable way to live, but it’s also one of the most powerful ways to change our lives.
Praise shouldn’t be like a caboose that just follows the train and brings up the rear. Praise is more like the engine of a train that makes things happen. Our faith isn’t complete without praise. Colossians 2:7 says, we are to be an “rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, even as you were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving.” So, without thanksgiving we can’t abound in faith.
Praise affects us, it affects Satan and it affects God. It touches everything and every part of our lives. Likewise, a lack of praise affects us in a negative way, it turns Satan loose in our lives, and doesn’t bless God.
We have to this area of our lives aligned with the Word of God.
I spent many years trying to help someone to come to place of praise in their life. She has destroyed her life by speaking negatively over her life. Sadly she can’t see the connection between negativity and the problems she has in her life.
Everyone agrees that praise is good, but very few feel any responsibility to praise God when they don’t feel like it. I don’t know anyone who wakes up and plans on being depressed. They would like to be full of joy and praise God, but they don’t feel like they have any control over this. They think praise is just a response that happens and that if everything goes right, they will automatically do it. But this isn’t the case.
Jesus instructed His disciples the night before His crucifixion to not let their hearts be troubled “John 14:1) This wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. Yet today most people find this command was insensitive and unreasonable. That Jesus wasn’t being understanding or compassionate.
These disciples were about to see Jesus arrested and then flee in fear for their lives. They would see Jesus unjustly condemned, crucified, and buried. And He was telling them not to let their hearts be troubled. Heck, I can’t even watch a movie about Jesus being crucified and buried without crying, and yet Jesus said “Do not be troubled.”
Choose a mindset of praise, even in troubles.
Jesus ended His talk with His disciples that evening with a promise that they would have trouble (John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” What an understatement that is. Yet He said to be of good cheer. How is this even possible? He said it is possible because He had overcome the world.
When Jesus said that He hadn’t even been crucified, much less resurrected and seated at the Father’s right hand. It was because of faith that the disciples were supposed to rejoice. He had promised that He would be resurrected and then reign, and if they were in faith, they would rejoice in that -and so should we.
We live in a negative world, a fallen world where it seems that the ungodly are getting more and more prominent. So much of what we hear and see is just negative, and we have to make a deliberate effort to be positive and counter the culture we live in. Praise is a great tool to help us achieve that. We need to check our praise pulse, to see if we have a spiritual pulse, just as if someone were passed out we would check their pulse to see if they were still breathing. If we don’t live lives that constantly give thanksgiving and praise to God, we are not spiritually healthy. Some people may take offense to that thinking I just don’t know their situation. But Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).
It’s a command, not a suggestion. Paul didn’t say it once he said it twice. He didn’t want anyone thinking he had made a mistake or that there were exceptions to what he said. We are always supposed to be rejoicing in the Lord. It’s a command, not a suggestion to do it if or when we feel like it.
Paul lived what he preached. When he was beaten and thrown into the deepest darkest part of the dungeon, he and Silas broke out in praise at midnight (Acts 16:22-26). They didn’t just do this as spiritual warfare. They weren’t praising God through gritted teeth, just to get out of their problems. Even when the walls of the prison fell, and they were set free, they didn’t leave. They were actually praising God because they loved Him and were worshipping with a pure heart. It affected the other prisoners so that not one of them left either.
Joy is always available but we have to choose it.
We may not always feel joyful, but Galatians 5:22 says, joy is the fruit of the Spirit. If we have the Holy Spirit, we have joy. We may not feel that joy, but we can choose to lift our hands and speak praise to God by faith. Learning to praise God even when everything is going badly can change our hearts, make us much more effective, and cause our faith to abound.
Choose to reject worry and walk in faith.
We have to accept responsibility. We are not just elevated animals responding to stimuli. We are created in the image of God. We can choose to say that we are going to give thanks and rejoice in the Lord. But until we do, we can easily live as victims. We have to get rid of the excuses and just do what the Word of God says. Philippians 4:6 says,
“Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
The Greek Word for “nothing” means nothing. It means there are no exceptions. Yes, we might have problems, but we don’t have to worry about them. We don’t have to be careful about them. We can go to God in prayer with thanksgiving and make our requests known to Him.
Jesus demonstrated the right way to bring our requests to God. He used something called the “sandwich technique,” where we sandwich our requests in between two slices of praise. We start with praise, and we end with praise.
Matthew 6:9-13 tells us how Jesus prayed. He began by pausing God with “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” And He finished by praising God with “For thine is the kingdom, and power, and the glory, for ever.” That’s the way to do it.
Even in the Old Testament, believers were told to “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise, be thankful unto Him, and bless His name” (Psalms, 100:4). But the nation of Israel didn’t always do this. In fact, God said that because they did not serve Him with joyfulness and gladness, for the abundance of all things, He was going to bring judgment on them (Deuteronomy 28:47-57). This shows that God holds us responsible for rejoicing, praising Him, and being thankful for all the good things He’s given us.
Fight Satan and bless God by choosing praise.
We face a lot of tough situations in this life, and the world expects us to fall apart when trouble comes. But God told us to respond a different way -to not let our hearts be troubled. We get to choose (Deuteronomy 30:19). We have the option of following Jesus’s Words and acting on the Word of God. I have experienced what praise has done in my life and what negativity does also. I will take praising God any day of the week, because praising destroys the works of Satan and his minions. 
From Pity to Praise 