CCF International Church

A MOUTH FULL OF HIS PRAISE

Psalms 34:1-5
1 I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together.
4 I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces were not ashamed.

David could have spoke about his challenges and the difficult circumstances surrounding his life; but he spoke of a calculated decision that he had made; inspite of everything that is going on in his life, he has determined to bless the Lord in all seasons, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, every day of every month, every month of every year, year after year.

He also declares that the praises of the Lord shall dwell continually in his mouth. If a believer’s mouth were to be examined, one must find praise.

If we applied our traditional understanding of praise….which is clapping hands, loud music and fast songs….
Then how can we praise when we go to work?
We can’t take our guitar and the amplifier to work?
How can we praise God continually when we go to the bank….
We can’t take the drum set and go to the bank…..
You can’t even use your cell phone in the bank…

So from all this, we can safely conclude ONE THING…..
Praise is much more than what we do in the church for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning….
Praise is everything that leaves our mouth…

There is an interesting word that David associates with praise. The word radiant….
It comes the Hebrew word nāhar: a verb meaning to flow, to stream. It describes the movement of something like the flow of a river or stream: a flow of people and nations.

Now what does this mean to us?
Simply, an absence of radiance, the inability for believers to flow together in the accomplishment of our assignments, is a clear symptom of an absence of praise in our mouths.
Here is the litmus test….
Does your prayer praise God or yourself?
(Luke 18:11
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.)
Does your song praise God or has the name of Jesus been edited out of the lyrics for commercial success?
Does your preaching and teaching advertise, praise and glorify and magnify Jesus the Christ, or does it praise your ministry, your pet doctrines, your denomination or network’s success.
An absence of a culture of praise will result in an absence of radiance.
An absence of the ability to flow …. We become spiritually viscous…too thick to flow in the winters of our lives.
Our viscosity improver is praise.
God bless you.