When I was a young child I use to watch my Momma (Debbie Pinnock) praise God! I vividly remember hearing her singing to the greats: Sam Cooke, Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar, and more. Back then, I didn’t really understand the brevity and depth of what she was doing, but as I began to grow in my own personal relationship with God I quickly discovered that praising God comes at cost known to Him but unknown to others.
Hebrews 13:15 confirms that our praise to God should be sacrificial and the author of this passage said, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”
My brothers and sisters, you don’t know the cost of my praise much like I didn’t know the cost of my momma’s praise and let me add, I don’t know the cost of your praise. A lifting of hands and a joining of voices to exalt God and extol His virtues at church in corporate praise and worship is a good thing and I amen that all day. However, the singing of songs and the clapping of hands is a very small part of what it means to offer praise.
As the author of the above passage says, praise involves sacrifice! It costs us something! King David understood this when he said that he would not give to God that which cost him nothing (1 Chronicles 21:24). Don’t get it twisted praise is not just about running, clapping, singing, lifting hands, and shouting. Our praise costs us dearly. It demands that we deny ourselves as we follow the way of Jesus. The way of the cross.
Indisputably, unequivocally, and irrefutably Jesus offered the highest form of praise on the cross. He showed us how to offer a sacrificial praise. Our hearts, like His, offer sacrifical praise when we are silent when we are accused, downtrodden, ridiculed, beaten, shamed, falsely accused, disenfranchised, hurt, misunderstood, and broken. Our sacrifice of praise is most spiritually real and authentic when we deny ourselves, pick up our cross, submit to God and follow Jesus!
Thank you Momma for demonstrating to my brothers and I the true meaning of sacrificial praise! Though we didn’t know the cost of your praise back then and now; God did and He still does!
It’s praise time y’all!!!
4GIVEN 