Psalm 146:1-2 (ESV)
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
[2] I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
We were created for the praise of God’s glory. Sin entered the world and now we are born with a propensity to glorify the creature rather than the Creator, so God designed a plan that would win over the universal tendency to worship self. Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit bring people out of their self worship, back to the worship of God.
One of the first testimonies of grace is the desire for God to be praised. Salvation is the return of God to the throne of the heart and life. A believer, no matter how long he has been in the faith, wants God to be glorified. He is grateful for the forgiveness of his sins. He is joyful at the reality of being brought out of the lie of self importance to the truth that “from Him, through Him and to Him are all things…”. This gladness at what God has done does not diminish as time goes on. In fact it grows.
The Apostle John was a very old man when he wrote his first Epistle. And as that old man he penned “What manner of love is this that we should be called the children of God?” We do not know how old the Psalmist was when he wrote Psalm 146. But in its opening verses he proclaims his resolve to praise God for as long as he lives. This is not bravado and it is not presumption. It is a heart that cannot imagine ever tiring of growing in the knowledge of God and basking in the glory of God. And he was right.
True grace wrought in the heart of a hell deserving sinner will produce a life long commitment and wonder at what Christ has done. It will also produce a growth towards God and a growing relationship with God that increases the wonder in the heart of the true believer. True Christians do not lose their fervour for God. They grow into it. This is not to say that there will come a time when we no longer sin or do not have to wrestle with temptation, or joylessness. But it does mean that the closer we get to God the closer we want to get.
Sin, when a true believer falls into it, will break his heart more than it does the novice. The mature saint knows the pain of sin more then the rookie. It breaks his heart more, and causes him to flee to His Saviour quicker. The relationship we have with our Saviour is not one that can be outgrown. It will not become dry and ordinary.
There will not come a time when a believer who loves His Saviour will say “Is this all there is?” There are myriad blessings in knowing our God. God, in time, opens them up to us in greater and greater measure and it never fails to strike with wonder the one for whom they are opened.
Today, do not allow your relationship with the Creator of all things to become ordinary to you. It is an adventure that should always cause you to say “I will praise the Lord as long as I live.”
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