PUT ON YOUR PRAISE PANTS
Psalm 33:1 ESV
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
Are you wearing your praise today?
Are you wearing it boldly like a Fire-Engine Red,
an Electric Lime or a Deep Turquoise?
In His letter to the Colossians, Paul talks about the spiritual clothes that we wear, or at least that we should wear. He says that when we are saved, when we become NEW CREATIONS in Christ, we should throw out the clothes from our old man. We should then replace them with a new wardrobe, our NEW CREATION clothes. Those outfits that we used to wear, they just don’t “fit us” anymore.
Colossians 3:12 BSB
Put on then, [Clothe yourselves -BSB] as God’s chosen ones,
holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness,
humility, meekness, and patience,
Now the question as we read this, would be, “What does “FIT” us?
What does “look good” on us? Paul mentions a few things in his letter to the Colossians, but so do the Psalms. Like chapter 33…
Psalm 33:1 ESV
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
If we have been saved, if we are righteous, than one thing that definitely looks good on us, is PRAISE! In fact praise looks good on us any time of the day or any season of the year.
Now I get it some days we may wake up and we may not feel like putting on our praise pants! We might feel defeated and discouraged for any number of reasons. Yet the truth is, sometimes we just to have to pull up our pants, face the day and let our attitude be shaped by what we wear. Now I’m not saying we should be mask wearers that pretend to be something we aren’t or feel something we don’t.
I am saying that how we approach the day can shape our attitude.
What we choose to dwell on can impact our praise.
What we choose to wear can affect our outlook.
Psalm 33:2 ESV
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
One way we praise, is by simply giving thanks. When we dwell on all the reasons we have to be thankful, it can shape an attitude of praise. One idea, is to start each day, by listing a few things we are thankful for and simply give thanks. If you want a powerful discipline, to increase your praise and shape your attitude each day, start by giving thanks.
- Deliberately take a few moments to write out your blessings.
- Specifically identify exactly WHO and WHAT you are thankful for.
And this doesn’t have to be a super spiritual exercise either. In other words, we don’t have to isolate the “spiritual blessings,” like our Bible, our salvation, our church or our faith, rather we should see everything as a spiritual blessing, even the material. That means we can be thankful for the car that transports us, the job that feeds us, the hot shower that cleans us and the furnace that comforts us. There is something about being grateful, even for the things that we tend to take for granted.
One reason this is so powerful, is that giving genuine thanks, always takes us back to our Heavenly Father, who James tells us, is the one who gives us all good things.
James 1:16 ESV
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
Yes, our heavenly Father gave us that dependable car, [and even the sometimes undependable one.]. He gave us that hot shower, warm house and satisfying meal. Yes we earned the money, did the shopping and cooked the food, but HE provided the job and our health. So yes everything is spiritual and everything is an opportunity to give thanks and every thanks is another avenue to give praise.
It is easy to see then, isn’t it, how thanksgiving leads right into praise. The one I gives thanks to, is the one who deserves my praise. In fact note what else James says.
James 1:16 ESV
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
It says the one who gives us all good things, The Father of Lights” is the one to whom there is no “variation or shadow due to change.” In other words, our heavenly Father never changes, He is more faithful than the rising sun and He is as good today as He was yesterday. In fact He is just as good, and just as able to do good as He was yesterday! He is just as capable of blessing me today as He was yesterday. Today may be a difficult day, maybe we received a pink slip, lost a friend, or are facing an illness and yet God is just as good as He was yesterday. While my circumstances may change, while my faith may at times waver, GOD never CHANGES!
And note one last thing, as it pertains to God’s goodness and my praise.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above…”
That even includes the blessings that I don’t immediately see as blessings.
That includes the gifts that I don’t always recognize as gifts.
That job I lost that opened the door to a better job.
The relationship that ended and yet I am better off because if it.
That illness that caused me to lean more heavily on the Spirit, trust more deeply in Christ and be more aware of the Father’s presence.
All to often God is giving us gifts that we either take for granted, like that hot shower, warm meal or beautiful sunset; or that we don’t immediately recognize, because they come as blessings in disguise or on a cloudy day.
All the more reason everyday to get up and put on that vest of gratitude and wear it proudly. You know the vest, the vest that is a perfect match for those pants of praise, the ones that never go out of style, because our Father never changes, those bold pants, the ones that come in fireball fuchsia.
Yea, they look really good on you…
“Praise befits the upright…”