Tag: Praise

Gaining Access to Almighty God

2 Chronicles 5:7
Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim.

The Holy of Holies, also known as the Most Holy Place, was the inner room of the Jewish Temple in which was kept the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat, the Cherubim, manna, Aaron’s rod and a copy of the 10 Commandments. It was the place where blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat (the lid on top of the Ark) as an atonement for the sins of Israel. The single high priest designated for duty on the day of atonement was the only person allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. That was the only time in the entire year that anyone could enter. It was the only path and process that the Jewish people had in order to gain access to Almighty God.

Jesus changed all of that. Upon His death on the Cross, the veil that separated the people from the Most Holy Place was torn in two. In one divine moment access to the throne of God was opened to all people for all time.

As we prepare to enter the new year ahead, let us consider what a wondrous privilege we have been given. We no longer have to wait on anyone to enter into a direct, intimate relationship with Our Father in heaven. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, permanently opened the way for us to enter the Holy of Holies.

As we take advantage of our blessing, let us remember that it is pleasing to God when we enter His throne room. But let us be sure to learn from the actions of the high priest in approaching the Most Holy Place. As we approach Almighty God, let us enter His presence with awe and reverence. Let us enter His gates with thanksgiving and with praise. Let us seek personal cleansing and forgiveness through the confession of our sins.

Let us pray under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray in accordance with the Holy Word of God. Let us make a personal commitment to surrender to His will for our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us access to Your throne through Your Son, Jesus Christ. We bless the name of Your Son for providing the pathway for us to have a personal relationship with You. We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will help us to approach Your throne in the manner that is pleasing to You. We ask that we be given the grace that we need to pay the price necessary to gain the intimacy that we seek with You. We ask all these things in the name of our High Priest and Mediator, Jesus Christ.

Coming Into Alignment with God’s Timing

Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Through His love, His grace and His mercy, we are called to be servants of Almighty God here on earth and in heaven for all eternity. We were created in His image for this purpose in order to bring Him praise and glory. Being conscious of our own weakness, we should wait on and look to Our Master for our direction and our strength.

Our focus needs to be on God at all times. We should be expectant that He will direct our ways and make provision for the fulfillment of our calling. We should understand that He will set the limits of how high He is ready for us to go and He will set the timing of when we will get there. We should recognize that He knows exactly what He has planned for our lives and the lives of those around us.

If we focus on our problems or our visions without including Our Heavenly Father in the process, we will set expectations for ourselves that are outside of God’s will for our lives. We will be setting ourselves up for burn out or for seeing results that are disappointing to us. It is almost certain that we will not go as high as God had planned for us or that we will give up on our calling before it is fulfilled because we are not in tune with God’s timing.

Let us make Jesus Christ the Master over our lives. Let us seek the will of Our Master in everything that we do. Let us lean not on our personal plans. Let us serve Our Lord and Our King in accordance with the perfectly timed, perfect plans that He has set aside for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing us to be Your servants. We rejoice in knowing that just as the slaves went to their master for their direction and all of their needs, we can go to You for everything in our lives. We pray, Lord, that just as the slaves waited on their master before they did anything, we will learn to wait on the direction of Your Holy Spirit before we take on anything. We ask that we learn to rely on Your hand, Almighty God. May we reach the fullness of service that You have planned for us. We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus Christ.

Joyfully Celebrating Our All-Sufficient Lord

1 Chronicles 29:13
Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

King David was given unimaginable riches to pass along to his son, Solomon, who had been chosen by God to build the temple. As the riches were collected, all the people came together and brought the things that they could contribute to the building of the temple. Think of the immense pleasure and satisfaction that David felt as he stood over this assembly. He captured the moment perfectly.

David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.”
1 Chronicles 29:10-13

As we approach Thanksgiving Day, may the gratitude that we feel for the goodness and loving kindness of the Lord extend beyond the table top into our lives everyday. May the world see our joy as we live in the fullness of the gift of salvation and the certain provision of a place in the kingdom of God for all eternity.

Let us fill our hearts daily with thanks and praise for Our All Sufficient Lord. Let the world know us by our joy as we celebrate the unimaginable treasures that we have been given through the loving kindness of Almighty God.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for every provision that we have been given on this earth. We give thanks and praise Your glorious name for the eternal provision given through Your Son, Jesus. We pray, Lord, that we will have thanksgiving in our hearts every single moment that we breathe. We ask that we will find joy in the many riches that You have provided, especially in the joy that You have provided through the treasure that is our families and our friends. May our joy and thanksgiving draw those around us to Your Son, Jesus, and the eternal provision that He holds for them. We ask all these things in the name of One worthy of all praise, Jesus Christ.

Sustaining Our Relationship with Almighty God Through Prayer

Mark 9:29
And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Jesus taught us, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” He emphasized that this was the greatest commandment. It is the highest order in the kingdom. Our number one purpose on earth and in heaven is to love God, to praise Him and to bring glory to His name. One of the foremost ways that we can meet the requirements of this commandment is through our prayers.

When we are engaged in work that we consider to be the work of the Lord, we can lose sight of the fact that the work is being done out of the loving relationship that we have with Our Lord. If we let our relationship with God slip, He will withdraw the power that He gives us to do His good work. He is far more interested in our relationship with Him than He is in the result of our work. Our relationship with the Father is built and sustained through our prayer life.

We may be able to manipulate some things in the flesh, but all the things that provide real kingdom value will not endure under the burden of broken fellowship with the Father. Through regular prayer, we build on our relationship with Our Father and we insure that we are empowered to do the greatest works that He has called us to do, even to cast out evil.

Let us take our positions as anointed children of Almighty God. Let us claim our authority as those who have been set apart to do the work of the Father in heaven. Let us release our prayers to overcome all calamities, catastrophes and any hidden dangers that would attempt to come against us and our families.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love in our lives. We thank You for allowing us the privilege of returning our love, our praise and our worship to You through our prayers. We bless the name of Jesus, who dwells within us, for making it possible for us to have victory over evil. Father, we pray that all that we do is born out of the intimacy of our relationship with You. We humbly ask for the grace to stay in constant fellowship with You through our prayers. We beseech You to grant us the power over the evil in our lives and the lives of those that surround us. May it all be for Your glory. We ask all these things in the name of the One who has victory over all evil, Jesus Christ.

Exalting the King of Kings Moment by Moment

Psalm 145:21
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God. We praise Him because of His power and His glory. We praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus.

Our Lord, Jesus, is the fullness of the love and forgiveness that we have been so graciously provided by Our Father in Heaven. Let our every breath be filled for praise for the Father and the Son. May our lives be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit. Let us praise God with the love and delight that He has placed in our hearts. Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness, His grace and His holiness. Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom. Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus. Let us bless the name of His Son forever. Let us praise God for He is worthy.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we exalt Your name above all others for You are worthy. We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see Your glory in the tiny things in life as well as the large things. We lift our voices up in high praise for Your precious Lamb, Jesus. We bless His name and proclaim His holiness and His righteousness. We give thanks for His presence in our lives. May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to us. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

Turning Satan’s Tactics Against Him

Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Without question, one of Satan’s greatest skills is his ability to keep us distracted from building our relationship with God by keeping us focused on the busyness of life. One of his greatest lies is planting the seed in our minds that God does not want to hear about everything in our lives. Through the perfect work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can turn both of Satan’s tactics against him.

The first thing that we should do each day in the privacy of the morning is to invite the Holy Spirit to join us throughout the day. Then everything public in our busy lives will be marked by His presence. Everything that comes our way as a challenge or a trial can be handed to Him immediately through brief and constant prayer.

Because through the Holy Spirit, we have already given Jesus the burdens of life throughout the day, in the evening we can shut the door on all the cares of the day. Those cares are no longer there to distract us as we try to pray at night because they are in Jesus’ hands, not ours. Instead of focusing on our cares, we are free to focus on Our God. We can worship Him, we can praise Him and we can soak in His love. We can grow in our relationship with Him according to His good and perfect plan for our lives.

Let us learn to slam the door on the daily trials and distractions that life brings our way. Let us claim the rewards that Our Father in heaven promises us for going to Him in secret. Let us give all of our burdens to Jesus in the morning and thank Him and praise Him in the evening.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Holy Spirit to be the helper that we can call on to make our burdens light. We rejoice in His presence with us throughout the day and night. We pray for the wisdom and the grace to release our cares and concerns to Our Savior throughout the day. With our burdens in Jesus mighty hands, we ask, Lord, that You teach us how to come to You without distraction in the evening. May we learn to spend our private prayer time in the evening growing in our relationship with You and refreshing ourselves for the next day to be spent in the yoke of Our Savior. We ask all these things in the name of the One who lightens our burdens, Jesus Christ.

When We Find Ourselves in a Dry and Weary Place

Psalm 63:1
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Most people who study the Bible find David to be one of the most intriguing characters in all of the Old Testament. It is likely that he is so interesting to most of us because he is a character of such contrast. We learn that He was passionately devoted to God as evidenced by today’s passage. But on the other hand, we find that he was guilty of some of the most grievous sins written of in the entire Bible. We learn that David was a mighty and courageous warrior that won many battles because of His favor with the Lord. But conversely, we find that he was at his weakest when he was fighting his own personal battles in the flesh. David’s emotional highs and lows are well chronicled by David himself in the Book of Psalms. His writings provide us with some of the most heart-warming and inspiring poetry written anywhere in the Bible.

As we struggle through the challenges of daily life, the way God views David offers hope for all of us. Of David, the Lord said, “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” We can be comforted in knowing that there is nothing that we can do to cause Our Heavenly Father to love us less. His love and forgiveness are perfectly paired and extended to us without end. Our Lord is particularly pleased when, like David, we come to Him with praise even in our darkest hours.

Let us go boldly to the Throne of God, particularly when we find ourselves in a dry or weary place. Let us sing our praises to our precious Lord. Let us be strengthened by knowing that Almighty God delights in seeing us come through our trials in loving obedience to His calling on our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love and forgiveness. We sing Your praises knowing that even when we have fallen that Your love for us never fails. We bless the name of Jesus through Whom we are separated from our sin. We ask that Your Holy Spirit will inspire us to thirst for You in the passionate, intimate way that David did. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will strengthen us to walk in obedience to all that You ask us to do. We long to be called men and women after Your own heart. We ask all these things in the name of the living testimony of the love of God, Jesus Christ.

Praising God with the Love and Delight that He has Placed in Our Lives

Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God. We are first moved to praise Him for the magnificence of His creation. We are inspired by the Holy Spirit to praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus. We learn to praise Him because of His power and His glory that we see expressed in our lives every day.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit. Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness and His grace. Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom. Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus.

Let us praise God with the love and delight that He alone has placed in our hearts. Let our every breath be filled with praise for Our Savior, Our Redeemer, Our King. Let us praise Him by allowing our lives to be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we lift our voices toward You in high praise. We bring our thanksgiving for Your precious Lamb, Jesus. We proclaim His holiness and His righteousness. We give thanks for His presence in our lives. We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see the presence of Your Son in the tiny things in life as well as the large things. May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to You and to us. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

The Unspeakable Joy of Exalting the Name of Our Lord

Psalm 34:3
Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!

Throughout the Psalms, we read David’s prayers of praise. He praised God to help overcome his fears and to call on his all-sufficient Lord. David recognized God’s faithfulness in meeting his needs and he also recognized that God was bigger than any problem or fear that he had.

We will spend all eternity praising Our Heavenly Father. Why not practice our imperfect praise here on earth in preparation for the unspeakable joy we will receive from our perfect praise forever?

It is time for us to magnify God in our lives. He is much bigger than we allow Him to be. He promises us in John 16:33 that He has overcome everything that the world throws at us in the way of trials and tribulation. We can gain much by joining David in exalting the name of Our Lord.

Let us proclaim the glorious perfection of Our Father in heaven. Let us join together in bringing glory to the Most High God. Let us open the gateways of heaven through our worship of the King. Let us rest in peace as the Lord overcomes the things of this world that challenge us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the privilege of exalting Your name here on earth and in heaven for all eternity. We lift You up above all others. There is not a single name that approaches the majesty and power of who You are. Teach us, Lord, to have the faith of the Virgin Mary who said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” as she prepared to receive something that she did not believe to be possible. May Your grace cover us, Lord, so that we may live in reverent awe of who You are. We pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us and inspire us to pour out praise to You each day. We ask all these things in the name of the One worthy of all praise, Jesus Christ.

Our Primary Purpose is to Love God

Mark 9:29
And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Jesus taught us, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” He emphasized that this was the greatest commandment. It is the highest order in the kingdom. Our number one purpose on earth and in heaven is to love God, to praise Him and to bring glory to His name. One of the foremost ways that we can meet the requirements of this commandment is through our prayers.

When we are engaged in work that we consider to be the work of the Lord, we can lose sight of the fact that the work is being done out of the loving relationship that we have with Our Lord. If we let our relationship with God slip, He will withdraw the power that He gives us to do His good work. He is far more interested in our relationship with Him than He is in the result of our work. Our relationship with the Father is built and sustained through our prayer life.

We may be able to manipulate some things in the flesh, but all the things that provide real kingdom value will not endure under the burden of broken fellowship with the Father. Through regular prayer, we build on our relationship with Our Father and we insure that we are empowered to do the greatest works that He has called us to do, even to cast out evil.

Let us take our positions as anointed children of Almighty God. Let us claim our authority as those who have been set apart to do the work of the Father in heaven. Let us release our prayers to overcome all calamities, catastrophes and any hidden dangers that would attempt to come against us and our families.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love in our lives. We thank You for allowing us the privilege of returning our love, our praise and our worship to You through our prayers. We bless the name of Jesus, who dwells within us, for making it possible for us to have victory over evil. Father, we pray that all that we do is born out of the intimacy of our relationship with You. We humbly ask for the grace to stay in constant fellowship with You through our prayers. We beseech You to grant us the power over the evil in our lives and the lives of those that surround us. May it all be for Your glory. We ask all these things in the name of the One who has has victory over all evil, Jesus Christ.