30 Days of Praise-Day 4 Psalm 9:1-2

I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

According to Strong's, "heart" in vs. 1 is the Hebrew word leb meaning "inner man-will, understanding,soul, mind; in the midst." The same word is used in Deuteronomy 4:29:

"But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

and in Deuteronomy 6:5:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

So the same fervency we employ to seek our Lord's face in order to find Him, to love Him with everything we have in us-with the entire "inner man"- should be the same passion we use when we praise Him and share all he's done for us. I think praise is the natural outpouring of a relationship of someone we're in love with. We want to spend all our time and energy with them and we can't stop talking about that person. May that someone be Jesus Christ, the ultimate Lover of our souls, our Redeeming beautiful Savior and a Friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Jesus, today I want to praise you with my whole heart, all of me-my mind, soul, strength and will. I praise you for life! I praise you that I have breath in my lungs, that I am able to see the beauty of the changing of seasons, and everything I've been blessed with. Help me to appreciate the little things and pleasures that you've given me and help me to be content in any and all circumstances. Thank you, Lord for everything you are to me. May my love for you be as necessary to me as breathing and may Your love fill me up so it can spill onto others.

30 Days of Praise-Day 3 Isaiah 25:1

O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.

In context this verse and chapter are speaking about the coming of Christ and how his plan is unfolding just as he said it would. But personally, when I first read it, it struck me also that the Lord "in perfect faithfulness" has blessed us and done amazing things in our lives. The fact that he had the blessings and the direction our lives were going to take-our going in and coming out, lying down and waking,knowing the words that are on our tongues before we speak them-planned long ago says to me that He is a loving and trustworthy God. He has done and will do the things that He has planned. That's the truth about Him that I am celebrating today.

30 Days of Praise-Day 2 Psalm 8:1-5

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise...When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

I love nature imagery in the Bible. This verse and the one in Isaiah 55:12 are two of my favorites:

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

It makes me smile to think about the mountains bursting in song and the trees clapping their hands. They were created for one purpose and one purpose only: to bring praise and glory to their Creator. So even when man and woman-who were created for the exact same purpose-fail to express praise to the Lord, all of His creation cries out in our place.

God's glory is everywhere and His fingerprints are all over this world. He is evident in the moon, the stars and in His creation of man. We are so small in comparison to the universe and firmament that He holds in place, yet He loves us and desires a relationship with us so much that he crowns us with glory and honor. That is amazing to me!

Today, Lord, my prayer is to remember who I am in You...that the number one purpose in creating me is to bring glory to your majestic name. It's so easy to forget in the busyness and distractions of this world that you are the Author of all things, Creator of the universe, Holder of the stars and Lord of my life. Please don't let the rocks cry out your praises in my place; help me to shout my thanks to you from the rooftops. Help me give you the honor and glory you deserve. In Jesus' name.

30 Days of Praise- Day 1 Psalm 52:9

I thought it would be appropriate since we are fast approaching Thanksgiving to post daily about the Lord who is worthy to be praised. Lately I've allowed the struggle that I've been enduring for the last few years to consume me and blot out the truth of the true source of light-Jesus Christ. Through recent prayer, fellowship and being bathed in the Word daily, it feels like His light is shining brightly inside me again.

In my Beth Moore Daniel study we've just learned about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in chapter 3 standing alone in their refusal to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, and then surviving the firey furnance they were thrown into as a result. A few things she said went straight to my heart during the video session:

1) There was a fourth person in that fire with the three Jews; many scholars believe it was a Christophany-an appearance of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Relate that to our own personal "firey trials" and we are reassured that we do not experience them alone. The God-head-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-are in that fire with us, and we become the "fourth man."

2) There are "faith dividends" for each trial we suffer and overcome, suffer through or that God allows us to suffer indefinitely from. Our faith is built, refined or perfected depending on what kind of trial we suffer. The common denominator is that our Lord is GOOD, His purposes are FOR us, not against us and He loves us enough to let us experience trials so that we draw closer to Him, look like Him and experience Him on a deep personal level.

3) Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego not only survived the fire, not ONE hair on their head was singed, their clothes were intact and God went so far as to keep even the smell of smoke off their clothes. The ONLY THING THAT GOT BURNED IN THAT FIRE WERE THEIR BONDS. That is key. Beth said that maybe what God is doing when we experience hard times is burning away the bondage in our lives. He's not doing it to intentionally hurt us, but to accomplish a purpose in us.

These are just a few of the profound things that God is showing me through this study; it's part of His message to me that He's trying to get across using every medium He possibly can (friends, church, personal devotions, my husband). Even though I've "known" it all my life, it's just now occurring to me that regardless of what we experience or go through here on earth, OUR GOD NEVER CHANGES. He is the same yesterday, today and forever and He is deserving of all our PRAISE. I want to show the Lord that even though I am hurting and not understanding what He's doing in my life, I submit to His will, believe that He will work all things together for my good, that He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, that He loves me and above all IS WORTHY TO BE PRAISED. I want to "go out" praising His name, regardless of my circumstances. I WILL yet praise Him more and more.

So join me if you'd like. Let's purpose to start each day for the next 30 days with God's praise on our lips. I'll bet it will change our entire lives.

Day 1 Praise:
"I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints." Psalm 52:9