Monday, July 27, 2009

How can you not?


I was reading Ephesians chapter 1 today and was immediately drawn into the passage.
I love how the apostle Paul went straight from his greeting the believers at Ephesus - right into praise. Look at verse 3.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in
the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
How do you chose to give God praise? Do you do it with singing? Through prayer? Do you write your heartfelt thoughts in poetic form or as random thoughts in your personal journal?

Why do we praise Him? Because He alone is worthy of our Worship. He alone is Holy. He alone is to be exalted above all others, above all things.

Why do we bless Him? We bless Him because He has so richly blessed us. When we bless Him we praise Him for who He is and for what He has done.

How has He blessed us? He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Notice the completeness of that blessing. Every blessing - nothing is lacking.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless
in his sight. Ephesians 1:4

We have been given the benefit of knowing God.

  • We were chosen by Him for salvation.

  • We were adopted as His children. He has forgiven our past. He has secured our future. He has fulfilled our present.

  • We have been given the Holy Spirit as a comforter and guide. The Holy Spirit bears fruit in our lives with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

  • We have truly been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.
And it's all because of Jesus. Because of what He did on the cross. He took upon Himself our guilt, our shame, our punishment so that we could have forgiveness, eternal life and hope.
I don't know about you..., but like Paul I just have to praise Him!

10 comments:

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...

Excellent blog header.

Russ (Blogger next blog)

satire and theology

thekingpin68

Donalacasa said...

I am a singer. Singing to the Lord is something that I am compelled to do. Thanks for sharing.

Blessings!

Beth Herring said...

Great message Lisa. We just have no other choice but to lift our praises up to God!

Yolanda said...

We sang " I Will Exalt Thee" Sunday a.m. and I thought, Oh Lord, that is all I want to do, Exalt Thee. That is the deepest desire for me with Higher Grounds.

Exalting the only one that deserves to be Exalted. Father God, Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Amen? AMEN! Love ya, Yolanda

Brook said...

Great post Lisa! You always give me so much to chew on. I plan to come back and read your post again in the morning during my quiet time so I can chew on Ps. 141 and Eph. 1 a bit more.

Marilyn in Mississippi said...

Amen Lisa! I join you in praise to our LORD for He alone is worthy! Music is how I praise Him most I think.

May God bless you!

Marilyn

LisaShaw said...

O Lisa this is awesome!

Often I say and pray, that LORD HOW CAN I NOT PRAISE YOU?! With all that He's done for me. With all that He is to me. How can I not? How can I/we not?

Love you!

Teresa Christopher said...

Yes, I too praise Him with my voice. Sometimes when I sing in the praise band, or even just sing from my seat among all of my brothers and sisters, I think that I leave the presence of the congregation and commune alone with God. Thanks for sharing this...

Deb said...

Yes!

I just want to praise Him.

Sweet dreams.

Carol said...

What a privilege it is to be able to praise the great I AM.
Singing, dancing, talking and just sitting, He loves it all - what a wonderful God we serve.