“O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him
with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice” (Psalm 95:1-7 KJV).

I’ll let you into a bit of my life for a moment; it’s about lying in bed while I try to drift into
sleep. I pray to God. I talk to Him and give Him my praise and worship through my words of thanksgiving to Him then ask Him to help me in the areas of my life where I need help until I
fall asleep.

I want my last thoughts of the night be on Him. I’m not gloating at all, it’s just what I do. I want my last thoughts to be on giving praise to His omnipotence and power over everything.

God is worthy of our praise. He is the Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:8). He is the Creator of all. Doesn’t this beg for the worship He deserves from us? As His creation, we should give Him thanksgiving in all things—the good and the bad.

Personally, I have a problem with some Christians who only praise God when things are going well in their lives. I mean, yes, it is important to praise God for the good things, but when the tides turn, some people question why and get upset with Him. They seemingly act as if they are entitled to blessings from God and He took it away from them and they want it back. God gives and takes away (Job 1:21 ) and we should be praise Him regardless of the situation.

When we praise God for the good, we must continue to praise Him in the trials and tribulations of life. God is our Rock (Psalm 18:2). He is our strong foundation (Isaiah 28:16) to which our faith is built upon. Yes, we will face troubles and tribulations, but we are assured God will not forsake us in those trying times (Psalm 94:14). He is our God and we are His children.

In everything we have and everything we do, praise needs to be poured out to our Lord. He
gave us breath, life, and a future with Him in heaven through the sacrifice of His Son. We must remember that without our Creator, we would not exist and without His love for us we would
not have any hope, any hope at all.

Praise to God must not be taken lightly. We owe Him the praise and worship for all that happens to us or has happened to us. I grew up in a pretty bad house with abuse and lots of drugs. Looking back, I can see the hand of God protecting and guiding me through those years. I am who I am today because God used those bad times for the good I do today (Romans 8:26). He is the Author of my life and the chapters I lived through made me the man I am today and the lover of God I am, and hope to grow more.

Some would say that there is no praise to be given in those many years in the kind of environment in which I grew up. I disagree. God used my past to help me do His will today. He used my experiences to give me empathy and sympathy to those who have suffered as I did or in similar circumstances.

I give Him praise for helping me get through those years and I praise Him for the follower of Jesus that I am today. I couldn’t be more thankful for Him. Was life easy growing up in that environment? Absolutely not, but God guided me through it. Without Him and without His love and mercy, I would not be writing these words.

The splendor of our King deserves our praise day after day. By His hand we exist and by His hand we live each day. We may not like our jobs, but God deserves the praise that He enabled us to work within our skills and abilities. We may not like our place in life, but God provides us with a roof over our heads and food to eat (Matthew 6:26-34). We only need God and to fully trust Him with our lives. When we do this, praise Him for He cares for us more than you can ever imagine.

Sing praises to God. Sing how great He is to us and for us. We are nothing without Him. Doesn’t the God of the universe that supersedes time and dimension deserve praise? Yes, yes He does. To deny praise and thanksgiving to God, we deny His greatness and His power over the world and in our lives.

It may be hard to give praise to God when we are having trials and tribulations. It may seem as if, by our perception, that He left or abandoned us. Some may feel like they are being punished by Him—absolutely not true. Even in the hardest of times, we must give God praise. Not necessarily for the trial we are going through, but for the strength and guidance that He provides, through those low dark valleys that we tread through in different seasons of our lives.

We’ve all been in a dark forest for a season. When in the midst of those times, it is easy to put the blame on God. Our failures are not God’s fault. We get ourselves into the situations we don’t want. The problem is this: We never listened to God through the Holy Spirit.

We need to give God praise for the Holy Spirit. Once we’ve received the Holy Spirit at our conversion, we received the Helper promised to us as described in the book of Acts. Praise the Lord for this! The Holy Spirit is such an awesome aspect of the Triune God. We have the Holy Spirit to give us the guidance and the voice of reason when we need direction and encouragement.

Praise should not be taken lightly. God is worthy of our praise. Without God sending His Son down to walk with us and be the final sacrifice for our sins to make us righteous before God, we would have nothing to have hope for when we leave this world. We are so much more than we know to God, and He needs the praise from our hearts and lips to express our thankfulness for all He has done for us.

When it comes down to it, giving praise is a decision each one makes. You can take and take and never say “thank you” to Him or praise Him for what you have. You can have little to nothing and praise God. You could be facing the biggest challenge of your life and still praise Him. He is our God. He is the Creator of all. Just praise Him for all that you have and all that He gives you as a child of God.

Johnflysaught@gmail.com

Everyone wants change once in a while. Need a change of scenery? Move. Tired of the drab color in the living room? Paint.  Don’t like your old car? Get another. Change can be good or bad, depending on what it is. When we think of change, we  most often think of the material world in which we are enveloped.

 We get tired of what we have and we change things to make us feel better—at least until we want to change things again. What about our personal relationships with Christ? Have you ever thought about moving it deeper and further? Is your relationship with Christ stuck in neutral?

Is it going backward? Only you can answer that question.   

What if your relationship with Jesus is stagnant? How do you move it forward? What if it is sliding backward? How do you get it back on track? There are lots of answers to this and they can be found in the Bible.  

The bigger questions are surrounding the word “why.” Why are you where you are? Are you content with your relationship with Jesus? What is stopping you from moving forward with Him? These are just sample of questions to ask, but you may be in a place of stagnation. Or are seeing yourself back a few steps further from where you were yesterday or last week? You want change? You can have it.   

We must continually examine ourselves. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 we are told to examine ourselves and prove ourselves. We need to examine not only our hearts but also our relationships with Christ. If we don’t exam ourselves frequently, we can lose our way or be taken off track from our faith. We are to grow in Christ, not decrease. We are to increase, not decrease. Through careful examination, God will show us where we are and where we need to grow or improve to increase in Christ.  

In 2 Peter 3:18 we are admonished to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus. This, my friends, is more than thinking about Jesus once a week on Sunday. It means more than just raising your hands to worship or asking God to fix whatever problems you got yourself into that week.  What it means is to learn. Learn about Jesus. Learn His ways. Study His ways and His teachings. 

Our relationship with Christ is not like passive osmosis. It is active. It is precise. We must learn to study the Word, let the Holy Spirit guide us, and pray more and more. When we begin to learn more about Christ, and as that personal relationship with Him starts to increase, we discover that, yes—we can trust Him. We can trust our lives to God.  He is the Alpha and Omega and when we begin to realize this, our awe for Him will grow and our adornment for Him will fill us with greater hope and increased faith. 

Breaking away from the old self to the reborn self is easy for some and very difficult for others.  After coming to Christ some people look forward with no need to look back. Others who have come to Christ have a hard time letting go, and look back to their past with romantic ideas of the “good ol’ days.” 

In the material world, we are surrounded by a society that tempts us daily. This can cause a barrier to a full relationship with Christ. I’m a victim of it just as much as the next person. We all fail and fall, there is no doubt about this. If you think otherwise, examine yourself (2 Cor. 13:5).

When we examine ourselves, we can see where our strengths and weaknesses are with the Lord.   This examination gives us the opportunity to change our lives for the better by working on those areas in which we are weak, and grow in the areas where we are strong. This is totally doable.  

It is easy to become disheartened when we work on changing weak areas into strong areas. We all have our own weaknesses in spirit and body. We are inherently sinful creatures and change may not come easy to those things in our lives that burden our hearts. It isn’t that we want to do what we don’t want to do, but we do anyway (Rom. 7:15-20). Even though we fall short, it doesn’t mean we ought to give up; we must fight. 

We must fight to change. To really change, we must constantly be in battle with ourselves in those areas in need of change. And you know what? Satan will tempt us with our weaknesses and try to knock down our strengths. He will use those things in the world where we are weak to entice us through media, substance abuse, society, and much more.  

When Jesus was in the desert getting tested for 40 days, He was tempted with the same core temptations we face today.  He overcame them.  He passed the tests Satan threw at Him. We can learn from what Jesus overcame that through strength in the God, we can overcome as well. 

Through mercy and grace, we are forgiven shortfalls are forgiven. Through Christ, we have favor with God. Through the Holy Spirit we have the guidance to do what we need to in order to achieve change; the changes we need to grow closer to our Lord and Savior. Change your desire to action and let your actions be bold.   

In being bold, I mean you may have to give up things and people to make the necessary changes. I’m in the process of doing that in areas of my life that need change. I won’t bore you with the details, but I have found giving things up can be hard in our society. 

We are already marginalized for being followers of Jesus by our society. When we give things up for a relationship with Christ, we can be pressured not to. Peer pressure can be a strong influence to hamper our changes but they, too, can be overcome. 

This can be said for anything with which you have issues. I have found the best thing to do is to avoid situations where temptation lies in wait for you. We know our weaknesses and what draws us to them, so avoidance is the best remedy.  

In conclusion, we all need change in our relationships with Jesus. We need to move forward with them, avoid and stop those things that are hindering us from having that full relationship with Him. Don’t stand still in your walk with Christ, but move forward—always forward. 

John Lysaught 

Johnflysaught@gmail.com