PRAISING THE LORD
"Thus will I bless
thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name."
- Psalm 63:4
David was a man after God's own
heart. He was a man who praised the
Lord. He wrote many of the psalms. David was not afraid to express his adoration
of God. In the 63rd Psalm, David
expresses his love and worship of God.
In the first three verses of the psalm,
David states his desire for God and his high view of the Lord. In our text, he writes, "Thus will I
bless thee while I live." David
had many reasons to praise the Lord & so do we.
The word, "bless" in the King
James Version is literally translated, "praise." David writes that he will praise the Lord,
"... while I live." While it
is true that we'll be praising God throughout eternity in heaven, it is wrong
to wait until heaven to begin praising Him.
He deserves our praise right now.
I believe that we tend to spend more
time complaining than we do in praise.
This is a mistake. Our blessings
far outweigh our complaints. Despite
the problems we face, God is worthy of our praise. He deserves our praise because of who He is.
Our text closes with this promise from
David: "I
will lift up my hands in thy name."
I must admit that I grew up in churches that didn't actively promote
lifting up hands in worship. Yet our
text teaches us that lifting up hands in praise is a good thing. When we lift up our hands, it is a sign of
surrender. We need to daily surrender
our lives to God. When we lift up our
hands, we physically extend ourselves toward God. We should continually offer ourselves in the service of God. Also, when we lift up our hands, we are
physically posturing ourselves to receive.
In worship, it is not God's blessings that we seek, but God
Himself.
We have much to
praise Him for. Like David, we should
say, "Thus
will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name."