Throughout the Bible, many faith stalwarts declared of His inexhaustible love and expressed their thanksgiving in many descriptive ways. One evening while blessing the Lord, I read Psalm 136 whose theme is of God’s never-ending love. It describes that God is deserving of our praise because His endless love never fails. Some translations of Psalm 136 say His love never quits or His mercy endures forever.
The chapter appeared to utilize the call and response structure whereas one person calls out a statement and the attending person or audience responds in unison or agreement to the call out with a confirming sentence, phrase, and/or word. While reading this chapter, I became overly excited about what God was being praised for. Being quite inspired, an impactful exercise was created whereas I made the verses personal and recited the call and response by myself (may sound weird but it’s awesome!!). Starting with how the chapter is currently written, this began with praising Him for Who He is. Afterwards, I inserted my reasons for praise and followed each reason with His love endures forever. Here is how my praise was made personal.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the King of Kings
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for His faithfulness
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for changing my life
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for healing my Momma
His love endures forever
Give thanks for His peace protects and provides
His love endures forever
Give thanks to God for restoring my relationship with Deanna (my wife)
His love endures forever
Give thanks for the depths of His love, mercy, and grace
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for granting me deliverance from depression
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for being so gracious and long suffering with my hard head
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord for keeping my Dad with a smile and laughter
His love endures forever
Give thanks to the Lord that The Spirit and word guides and guards my heart
His love endures forever
Give thanks for the Lord for children that desire Him
His love endures forever
Listen, this can go on forever!!! However, that’s the point, ongoing praise to the One Who is worthy of it all!! As He did with those in the Bible, God has given us the amazing privilege to experience His wonderful love and transformation in our lives. If we think of this as microscopic or irrelevant, understand that praise is monumental to God because He gets first place.
He loves to hear praise from our heart and lips. From a thankful heart, our praise is as authentic and real as those that wrote the Psalms. We can actively write and speak our own hymn catalog to the Lord and consistently create an atmosphere of praise and worship that will bless the Lord and stir us up at any time. Let’s see ourselves like the writers of the Psalms and make our praise personal for His glory.
To His glory,
Wylbur Holloway
NSC Leadership Team
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