By Pastor Steve Nickodemus

A Time to Cut Loose!

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!”
Psalm 150:6 New International Version

With this resounding verse the prayer book of the Bible, the Psalms, ends.  The Psalms include confession, laments, petitions, intercessions, history, thanksgivings, and wisdom.  But the overarching theme of the Psalms is praise.  God’s people praising the Lord for His goodness, His greatness, His mercy, His love, His kindness.  And God’s people are exhorted by the psalmists to “Praise the Lord!”

God certainly deserves all praise and glory and majesty.  And God’s people are motivated to give Him thanks for all His goodness shown to them, especially for His mercy in sending His only Son to die for our sins and save us.  And God commands you and me to praise Him, even in difficult times.

But above all that, it is simply part of the way God made us, to praise Him.  To cut loose with joy and praise and shouts!  It is the same kind of exuberance that comes rushing out of us at a great football game where we stand and cheer and scream for the joy of a player valiantly giving all that he has for victory.  Why do we do that?  Is it not because we are full of joy and excitement and praise for this player who gives all he has, his struggle for overcoming?

How much more then are we filled with joy and excitement and praise for the greatness and the power and the love and the valiant overcoming of our Lord?  Too often we hold back our praise.  We do not allow ourselves to confess Him, to praise Him, to extol His great name and great works.  It is time to cut loose, to join every creature and all of creation in exuberantly shouting and screaming praise for our Lord!

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!”

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church Colorado Springs, Colorado