Praise Break!

“I will sing to the Lord,

for he is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

he has hurled into the sea.

“The Lord is my strength and my defense;

he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him,

my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

The Lord is a warrior;

the Lord is his name.

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army

he has hurled into the sea.

The best of Pharaoh’s officers

are drowned in the Red Sea.

The deep waters have covered them;

they sank to the depths like a stone.

Your right hand, Lord,

was majestic in power.

Your right hand, Lord,

shattered the enemy.” Exodus 15: 1-6 (NIV)

This was accompanied by Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, taking a timbrel and leading all the women in praising and dancing. The song was actually about twelve verses longer than this, extolling the LORD for his great triumph over Pharaoh and his army.

I think Steve is right on with the idea of frequent praise breaks throughout our days. After all, the LORD is certainly worthy of them! But there is something else going on in a praise break that may not be immediately obvious to us.

I have written before that I once heard a preacher on Kinship Christian Radio (I think it was Chuck Swindoll.) say, “Praise of the LORD creates an atmosphere the enemy cannot move through.”

Now, if you think about that, it makes wonderful, glorious sense. When James tell us to resist the devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7) what better way to resist the enemy than to offer up the sacrifice of praise and worship to our Living God? What would our enemy hate more than a verbal, heartfelt acknowledgement that there is none like the omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving LORD our God and He is worthy of all our praises? 

I wrote a few weeks ago about putting on the full armor of God and going into battle against our enemy. (Ephesians 6:10-20) I noted that once we have covered ourselves in that armor and are fully prepared for battle, the Bible says to take up the sword (His Word) and pray. 

If the sword is His Word, and we are to wield that sword in prayer, it would seem to me one of the sharpest, most powerful swords we could grab would be the prayer His own Son taught us, which begins with praise.

 ”Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9b-10 (NIV)

Now, I know many churches stopped using the Lord’s Prayer because it had been said so many times it had become rote and some people weren’t really thinking about what they were saying, but if you pray it with your soul, it’s a very good prayer. There’s also the point that even if you don’t say it word-for-word, it’s an excellent format for structuring your prayers. After all, it’s what Jesus taught when his disciples specifically asked him to teach them to pray.

The point is that praise is powerful. We often think of praise as something that makes us feel good, but I don’t think we fully realize the incredible power in praise because it puts us into the proper relationship with God. He is God and we are not. It’s nearly impossible to be filled with pride and arrogance when one is acknowledging with all their heart and soul that God is indeed GOD! Praise puts a healthy distance between us and sin.

Psalm 29:2 says, “Give unto the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Philippians 4:4 is:  “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 

1 Chronicles 16:8-10 reads: “Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.

And, When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, his final quotation of scripture was, “Worship the LORD your God and serve Him only.” (Matthew 4:10)

Paul goes on for over a full chapter of Ephesians 4 telling the errant believers in Ephesus all the things they should not do, and concludes all those admonitions with this in Ephesians 5: 18b-20 (NIV) “Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Praise of the LORD is the natural order of things. It is what we were built for, what we are hard-wired for. It is our mission, our very purpose in life. We were designed and built to praise the LORD! 

So, Steve Ware is right on. Take a Praise Break as often as possible!

I think I feel a HALLELUJAH coming on!

Today’s Praise 

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. Acts 16:25&26 NIV