Praise the Lord!

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3).
 
”Praise the LORD! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being” (Psalm 146:1-2).
 
Dear Praying Friends:
 
After Psalm 145, which is a great expression of adoration toward God, the last five psalms repeatedly call us to praise God. Indeed, although I haven’t done a careful study of this, I have sometimes thought that the most frequent command in scripture is for us to praise the Lord.
 
In the New Testament, we learn that we are created to be for the praise of his glorious grace and for his glory in general (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14; 1 Peter 2:9).
 
I once startled the men in the Thursday morning breakfast group in Bastrop by saying that my greatest sin was failure to praise God. I still believe that, although I am slowly trying to learn the habit.
 
Why should we praise God? Because he is great, and greatly to be praised. We should praise him for his greatness and for his goodness, especially for his grace to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
 
When we are low, if we remember to praise God, regardless of our circumstances, looking to him alone and expressing our unconditional adoration of him, it will lift our spirits and refocus our attention on the one who governs all things for his glory and our good.
 
Although praise and thanksgiving go together and are basically inseparable, I think we can make a slight distinction by saying that praise expresses our admiration of the Lord for his person and his works in general, while thanksgiving reflects gratitude for particular benefits to us. In any case, God deserves both from us.
 
Thank you for praying last week. God enabled me to write more notes on Hebrews 12, to revise a long book review from several years ago (here is the updated review), and to begin a new story for the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity, as well as to spend meaningful time with a few people.

Yours in the greatness and the goodness of our wonderful God and Savior,
Wright