Friends in Christ Weekly Message
April 19, 2001

Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy house of worship,
   praise him under the open skies;
Praise him for his acts of power,
   praise him for his magnificent greatness;
Praise with a blast on the trumpet,
   praise by strumming soft strings;
Praise him with castanets and dance,
   praise him with banjo and flute;
Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum,
   praise him with fiddles and mandolin.
Let every living, breathing creature praise God!
   Hallelujah!
Psalm 150 (The Message*)

The psalmist is exuberant about praising the Lord. He is advocating full, unrestrained expression of our praise. The psalmist does not even limit those praising God to humans, but includes "every living, breathing creature..."

The assumption is that the Lord clearly deserves this praise. And there is no setting of particulars that bring this praise. This is a universal, not something for special times. As you hear in many churches: "God is good! All the time!"

We can further note that this theme is not just in this psalm, but occurs repeatedly in scripture. If we truly have a sense of God, we will be full of praise. This is because we will truly experience, and recognize, God's goodness in our lives and in the larger world. This does not mean we will not experience pain and disappointment, but that we have it in a context of awareness of how much we are blessed.

I think it really works both ways. As we become more aware of how God is blessing our lives, we become more filled with a sense of praise - and praise will burst out of us. But it is also true that as we focus more on the mandate to offer God praise, we will become more conscious of the reasons we have to praise the Lord.

I love this psalm and I love songs of exuberant praise. There is no way I could praise God too much!

Do you live your life in a spirit of praise?

Hallelujah! Praise God!

Bill Samuel

* The Message version © by Eugene H. Peterson.