3 Reasons Praise is More than Sacrifice

We all understand and realize life has its ups and its downs. Life will throw our daily routine into the spin cycle. Everything is crazy, it’s hard and it is sometimes difficult to find some sort of normalcy in our daily life. We know that He says, “…and my grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9). This is the reasoning we can offer up a sacrifice of praise.

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Our praise should never be contingent on how we feel. The writer of Hebrews calls us priests of God. As priests it is our duty to help others through acts of service by sharing the grace God has poured out in our lives. If our praise was contingent on how we felt, we would never have times of worship. Our relationship with God is something that should be cherished and not something we do out of blind obligation.

1. Our hearts should be established in grace: This allows faith to well up and allow us to appreciate that grace. When life happens are we going to sit back on our own altars and watch life spin by, or will we come to the cross of Christ and offer up a sacrifice of praise?

There are times when we come to the Lord and it’s easy to praise; and there are times when praising is not so easy. It tends to be the last thing on our minds and the last thing we do. Yet, it is in these times we are called to offer up that sacrifice of praise. “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God…” (Hebrews [13:15]).

2. A sacrifice is the giving up of something that is important. Sacrifice is something that can only come from the heart. A sacrifice is not a sacrifice unless it costs something. There’s an old song… “We bring a sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord…” yet, in-fact we’re really not bringing a sacrifice. We may think we’re bringing a sacrifice of praise, when we really are praising simply because we are desiring to praise. We say we’re offering a sacrifice of praise, when really, we’re not offering anything that costs us dearly to God.

3. Sacrifice is something that calls for death. In the Old Testament, people had to give up something of their own to sacrifice; it had to cost them dearly; it had to be expensive. As believers in Jesus, we are called to bring a sacrifice of praise. This sacrifice must be painful and hard. We are called to give up our comfort zones, our ego, our pride, our hurts, our pain, our desires. We are called to let these things die. A sacrifice of praise is painful, but it allows our hearts to come to a place where we allow the presence of God in so we can worship.

We may believe singing about a sacrificial praise is fun, but reality is, it will cost and it will cost dearly. This is a part of life. When my wife and I married, I had to realize everyday was a sacrifice for our marriage. We give up our own desires, thoughts and wants to please the other. I am no longer my own, I’m my wife’s. Our relationship with Jesus is the same. Life is not meant to be easy, it’s meant to be sacrificial. We are no longer our own, we are God’s.

“Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol” (Psalm 24:3 − 4). Our lives must be clean, and sometimes we need cleaning out to be free to enter into the grace of His presence. If we want to experience the King of Glory coming into our lives, we must allow our lives to die so we can praise Him for who He is; the King of Glory!

Grace: What’s So Amazing About It?

I’m excited to share my coming book: Grace: What’s so Amazing About it? This book is packed with 30 days of devotionals, just like the one you read. It’s designed to take your faith to the next level and help you go from looking at one facet of grace as only for salvation, but looking at the whole diamond.

Inside this book you’ll learn:

• Understand what God’s grace is.
• Why we need God’s grace.
• Learning to forgive others and extend grace to them as God has already extended his grace toward us.
• Walk you through a journey of deepening God’s in our daily lives.
• Help you study God’s word.
• Learn to journal your thoughts.

I’m excited about this product. I believe it will help you draw near to the heart of God. If you would know when GRACE: What’s So Amazing About It? is available I encourage you to give us your name and email address and you’ll be the first to find out when it’s available for purchase.

And the best part – I’m giving away nearly 1/2 of this book–FOR FREE–all you have to do is subscribe below to take part of this very special giveaway!

[reminder]Why do you feel, at times, it hard to offer your life as a living sacrifice of praise? [/reminder]