THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE

One morning as I was reading one of the daily Bible verses/devotional that appears in my email, this particular verse caught my attention. Every once in a while something I read hits a note with me and I like to explore its meaning further. This is my attempt to share my thoughts "out loud" on the scripture.
 

  

"Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."   ~Hebrews 13:15-16 (NKJV)

Okay, so at first glance this scripture makes sense. In a nutshell, my understanding of it is this--to praise God for who He is, for what He has done, and to present thanksgiving for all He has given us.

Sounds good right? Yes, but what spoke to me was the word sacrifice. Now that isn't a word you hear much today...or at least desire to hear anyway. When we think of sacrifice we usually think of some far away custom from the Bible days ...or perhaps we may think of some not too familiar evil practices. So either way I wanted to understand why when we present our praise to God it is to be a sacrifice of praise.



So I looked up the definition of the word sacrifice:

sacrifice (def):

• an act of offering to a deity something precious ; especially : the killing of a victim on an altar


• something offered in sacrifice


• destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else b: something given up or lost

WOW okay now we are getting somewhere. So the first & second definitions are what we are all familiar with. Offering sacrifices to God on an altar. We no longer have to offer these types of sacrifices because the ultimate sacrifice has already been accomplished. Jesus offered Himself as the final sacrifice of payment (atonement) for our sins.

Now the THIRD def. of sacrifice I think really applies here to our defintion as it applies to scripture.--

• "destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else"

So let me know put this into perspective. The Bible is telling me to continually offer the "surrender of something--ie: our selfishness, our pride, our desires, our plans, our thoughts, our emotions, our sin..." for praise to God.

We must come out of ourselves...lay down the "old man" and acknowledge God for all He has done for us. The Bible says our praise to God is the "fruit of our lips". This convicts me to watch what I say when I am not praising God. How quick am I to say things? I should always remember that out of my mouth should only come the sacrifice of praise to God. Doesn't the Bible tell us that "death and life are in the power of the tongue:"~Proverbs 18:21

Considering we live in the days that we do. We really have it easy. We do not have to go out every morning and find the fatted calf to kill in order to offer a sacrifice to God for our sins. In accordance with this sacrifice we also do not have to go out and offer sacrifices of praise with fruit and other firsts of the harvest. In essence, we have an easy simple task.

Perhaps if we did have to perform such physical tasks of offerings it would be a greater reminder of who God is, and what He has done for us...to have to physically everyday bring a sacrifice to our Lord.

In addition, we cannot ignore the word continually in this scripture passage. This does not mean that once we get saved we offer the sacrifice of praise to God once and then we are done. Continually means that we keep doing it, without end. We must continually offer God not ourselves, because we ourselves have nothing to offer...but rather laying down our flesh to acknowledge God in all His righteousness, holiness, goodness and faithfulness.

I don't know about you, but I am grateful that I do not have to find a ram in the bushes to sacrifice. However, I hope that I can make my sacrifice of praise as real and pure to God, as those burnt offerings were in the old testament.

I am thankful that Jesus Christ was my sacrifice for redemption. His atoning sacrifice covers all our sin.

Let us try not to just pay 'lip service' to our Lord. Sometimes it's easy to fall into the "emotions" of a church service...or just going through the day saying a blessing over our meal. I am going to try to really present my praise to God as a sacrifice. To surrender myself for the sake of giving glory to God for everything He has done.

I hope if I can get one thought across it would be this- To honestly give God yourself in your praise. To truly enter into His presence with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. He deserves our best, because He gave us His best!

Be Encouraged, Be Blessed, Praise On!





Originally written February 2009