The word for this week is "praise". I was surprised to find we haven't used that one yet! There are a couple of words translated praise in the Bible, but we'll be looking at only one of them today! Praise is found 13 times in Psalm 150:
1 Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. KJV
This is the Hebrew word "halal", where we get the word "Hallelujah". Strong's Concordance says: to be clear; to shine; to make a show, to boast; to be clamorously foolish; to rave; to celebrate; also to stultify (dictionary says of stultify: to cause to appear foolish or ridiculous). Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon adds: to act like a madman. Vine's Expository Dictionary adds: to glory, to sing praise. We've all seen people be "clamorously foolish" (act like madmen and appear foolish and ridiculous) at Vikings games, but THIS is to be done before God! HE is no stuffed shirt! He loves it when we do this. In fact, Psalm 22:3 tells us that He inhabits the praises (tehilla - the noun form of halal) of His people! If I can get "crazy acting" at a game, and I can, then I should get AT LEAST that demonstrative in praising the One, True, Most High, Living, Almighty God of the Bible! YOU should, too! Not ALL the time, but at some point in time, even if it's only in private! He deserves it! Here, to inspire you, is Hillsong United with J.D. (long hair and glasses) singing "Take It All":
Love and Shalom from the Swoveys!
