Prepare My mouth to declare your Praises

Day 20

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing, I will sing.

In our society so often we think about getting credit for ourselves. We are crying out, "look at me, look at me, look at me"!

We all have a high need for recognition and it can be difficult to think about asking the Lord to declare his praises through our mouth. This is just giving him what he deserves- honor, glory, praise, and worship.

When something good happens do you say, "praise God" not just in your heart and your mind but vocally with your mouth declaring his grace?

When you get a blessing

an increase in your pay

getting on the flight that you were hoping to get on

your team wins

What is your first instinct? Is it to say yes I deserve this? Or do you Begin to praise God?

Declaring His praise is a simple as saying,"God is good", "thank you Jesus", "thank you Lord", it could be a declaration that He is so good to us, that he always provides for our needs. 

Warning!!! Some may say that this is holy roller talk or you have gone off the deep end to always be praising God . They may even suggest that not everything good in your life comes from God. I disagree, Scripture says every good and perfect gift comes from above.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11

If you believe that God is your father and if you believe that he loves you then you have to believe that every good thing in your life is from him, and he deserves our praise.

In recent years there's been much talk about being thankful. Anne Voskamp wrote a wonderful book 1000 gifts that focuses on being grateful and giving praise back to God. Thank you Anne and for reminding us that there's so much to be thankful for.

But others in our society have also talked about being grateful but don't give the glory to God. They just think about being grateful as a change of your heart and while that is important it is more important to know your source of joy and to give Him the praise and adoration that are due Him because He is the giver.

How many things could you thank God for today?

Prayer

Thank you Father that I got a good nights sleep and I'm on my way to a job that I love. I have a car to drive.
Thank you for blessing me with good health, for lungs that work and that are not sick. Thank you Jesus for saving me. I am grateful for your relationship and your constant care including your abiding love.  

I praise you God for technology, for a computer that works and Internet that connects me to the world. I praise you for giving us the ability to communicate in other languages. I praise you because you are worthy to be praised.

Thank you for preparing my mouth to sing your praises for you alone are worthy of it!

Prepare my mouth to be cleaned up!

Day 18

Warning!! Clean up on aisle 1. Our mouths need a good cleaning. Well maybe it is just mine.

There is no shortness of verses in the bible that talk about out purifying our mouths.  No wonder our Grandmothers threatened to wash them out with soap.  Again, maybe that was just mine!

The goal is that our mouth, what we say and the condition of our heart should be acceptable to God. How are you doing this area?

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

I love that orbit commercial-Dirty mouth, clean it up!    

God says, "Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder. Zephaniah 3:9

He wants to remove anything unholy from our mouth so that we might praise HIM! 

We also will be held accountable for the things that we say! There is going to be a long list for me.

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, Matthew 12:36

Our speech should build others up, not tear them down!

Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

If you have trouble with having a holy mouth then this verse is for both of us!

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Psalm 141:3

Prayer

We confess to you Lord that we have not been diligently watching over what we say. Set a guard over our lips. Remove the old and replace it with new encouraging and building up language.