Praise the Lord

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!... (Psalm 148, ESV)

How many times have you been in a church service and heard someone shout, “Praise the Lord!” or heard the same response after giving someone good news or speaking of relief from personal disaster? Mid-service you may have been a little freaked out and thought “I could never do that” or maybe even “I would never do that!” In the conversation scenario you just felt, “Praise God!” wasn’t my first thought, I was just glad I survived! I made it to the other side!

Recently, I preached a sermon on heaven and the more I think about it the more I feel I desperately fell short of capturing the awesome reality of the Christian’s final destination! Now, before you pat me on the back and say, “It was good, Michael, don’t be so hard on yourself” I’m going somewhere with this. Perhaps you’ve grown up with an idea that heaven is such a downer, a place where we just… “Praise God for all of eternity.” You think, what about my dreams of finally being able to dunk a basketball on a ten-foot rim, breathe underwater, take flight with wings, or be able keep up with Edward Cullen in a foot race? Okay, I know, that last reference went too far!

My point is the Bible calls us more times than I can count to “praise the Lord!” Back to Psalm 148, it’s interesting He doesn’t just call us to praise Him, but sea creatures, mountains, and livestock… Weird huh? Maybe you’ve heard me quote C.S. Lewis before. Well, he said something neat about this I think is worth sharing. To paraphrase him, it’s from God’s very nature that He demands praise. It’s true to his character, what He’s about, that His name be praised. So basically, even if he didn’t command it, for (us) the creature to praise the Creator is to be awake, to be sane, to step from fantasy into reality, from sick to healthy. So if you and I are not praising God, then we’re are still snoozing, we have yet to “enter the real world.” We’ve completely missed the target, the whole point of living! WOW!

The second thing Lewis points out is that the natural overflow of enjoyment is to praise. Anything we love doing, we naturally begin to praise it… whether it’s our new boyfriend or girlfriend, sports, a new car, or for Sarah and me our first born, Judah! Not only do we praise those things, but also we invite others to praise what we enjoy!

“Come see him, he’s the cutest baby you’ve ever seen!”

“How about them Bucks! O-H-…”

“He’s just the sweetest guy I’ve ever met, get to know him, I bet you’ll agree!”

With that said, we get this awesome invitation to praise God NOW, and also for eternity if we choose NOW to forsake our own way, trust God’s Son, Jesus, and His death sacrifice for our sins on the cross. If you’re reading, have you made your decision?

Heaven, I think is going to be a place where we are so overwhelmed by God’s presence that we respond continually just like the immediate seconds following a buzzer beater jump shot to win the championship game! We run to family, run to friends, hugging, laughing, smiling, shouting: “Can you believe this! It’s too good to be true!” And it’s all because for the first time our praise is not being misdirected. It’s aimed right at the Author of life, Jesus, the one and only Savior!

Join with me this Easter, will you? PRAISE THE LORD! He is ALIVE!

Pastor Michael

**Adapted from a devotion selected from

The Mockingbird Devotional: Good News for Today (and Every Day).

Ross Byrd. 2013.