What does it mean to praise the Lord?

We have here an important definition of praise. Sometimes people have an idea that it is the feeling in our own hearts; but that is its results, rather than praise itself. Praise is "the fruit of our lips confessing His name." God appreciates your joy, the happiness that fills your hearts and wells over; but there is one thing He appreciates infinitely beyond all our feelings, and that is Christ Himself confessed to God. It is a wonderful deliverance to realize that true praise is simply offering up to God the fragrance of Christ. That which delights God will delight the heart of every one who knows and loves Christ.

There is no limit to praise. It will endure throughout eternity, and shall we limit it here? Let your whole life be one of praise. It is never by anything — energy or skill — in ourselves. We offer it by Him whose name gives acceptance to the feeblest whisper that tells of His worthiness and beauty before God.

All praise is to be "by Him" (Heb. 13:15). The incense is to be upon the golden altar alone. Thus the linking of the name of our Lord Jesus with every prayer and thanksgiving is not a form, but a reality, a necessity. Could there be one particle of praise or a single prayer acceptable to God, save "by Him?" This sacrifice of praise is to be continual, in times of darkness as well as of light; it is the fruit of the lips confessing His name. Christ is the altar, the basis of praise; and the incense, the material of praise. Nothing is so sweet to God as the name of Christ; that is praise which offers that savor to God in truth — confessing what He has done and what He is. Praise is not offering our feelings or our state to God, though it will be accompanied by joy and gladness, but it is the confessing of Christ, and He produces joy in the heart of the true worshiper — the sinner saved by grace.

But first, what is worship? It is the homage of the creature rendered to God. Hence the terms commonly used, both in Hebrew and Greek, to express it, have reference primarily to the action of the body as that by which worship is outwardly indicated; so that, although it may at times be but an external act of homage without the heart being really engaged in it (Zeph. 2:11), the idea conveyed by the terms in frequent use indicates the occupation for the time being of the worshipper with an object outside of himself. Where the homage of the heart is rendered to God, the worshipper is of course rightly occupied with Him. Worship, then, differs from prayer in this. In prayer we are occupied with the wants which we thereby present to God. In worship we are occupied with God. Hence true worship of God may take the form of praise, or thanksgiving, or both. If we praise Him, we tell out what He has discovered to us of Himself. If we thank Him, we speak of what He has done for us, or of what we have received from Him. In a certain sense His works praise Him, for they set forth something of what He is. But His saints bless Him, or speak well of Him; for they have received from Him. (Ps. 145:10.) For fallen creatures then to worship Him in truth they must be partakers of His grace. For one conscious of his sinfulness and sins, and what such deserve from God, cannot really worship Him till saved by faith in Christ. Till then such an one would be occupied with his condition and deserts, and not with God.

And what is worship but thanksgiving and praise? Thanksgiving for what God has done in Christ and gives freely to us who believe; praise for what we know by His word and Spirit He is, not only to us, but in Himself, His majesty, holiness, truth, goodness, mercy, love, and delight in us, the eternal self-existing One, now revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?

It is the outgoing of heart in delighting in God, and adoring Him for all He has done when we think of that, but flowing from what He is to us; and we are actually in His presence, never forgetting surely how we got there, for He has been manifested in that we have learned love and righteousness and holiness there, but as within, praising Him whom we have found, in our present relationship to Him.

Praises and thanksgivings, and the making mention of the attributes of God and of His acts, whether of power or in grace, in the attitude of adoration, constitute that which is, properly speaking, worship. In it we draw near to God, and address ourselves to Him. To make mention of His praises, though not in an address to Himself, is undoubtedly connected with worship, and the heart refers them to Him; but thus doing so has not the form proper to worship, although it may enter into worship in a subordinate way, as also may the prayers which adoration itself suggests. And this distinction must not be treated as of little importance. Sweet is it to rehearse, the one to the other, the excellencies of Him whom we love; but the redeemed delight to have God Himself in their thoughts. They delight to address themselves to Him, to speak to Him, to adore Him personally, to converse with Him, to open the heart to Him, to tell Him that they love Him. To the Redeemer it is a delight that these communings pass between God personally and themselves. They delight to testify to Him the sense they have of His greatness and of His goodness. In this case the communion is between ourselves and God; and God is more precious to us than are even our brethren. Such is the feeling of our brethren also. God is the portion of all in common. In short, in the former case, we speak to ourselves, or to one another, telling each other how worthy God is to be praised; in the latter, we address ourselves to God personally. It is plain — to him at least who knows God it is plain — that the latter is the more excellent employ; that it has a charm, a blissfulness, which the other possesses not. The spiritual affections are evidently of a higher tone; the communion is more complete.

Christian Sacrifices. — We have read of the one perfect sacrifice (9, 10) offered up once for all, so never to be repeated. No more sacrifice for sins can there be. No repetition of that sacrifice in any form is required. No altar have we on which to immolate a victim. No bloody or unbloody sacrifice for sins are we called to offer to our God. Yet have Christians no sacrifices to offer? Assuredly they have, and those which God will accept. All of them members of the holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), sacrifice becomes them; but as Peter in that passage takes care to state — spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. In harmony with this we read here in the Hebrews (13:15) of the sacrifice of praise to God to be offered continually. So, whether we learn of Peter or from the writer of our Epistle, the teaching is the same. Peter would have been as much shocked, if those amongst whom he specially laboured had altars erected in their place of meeting in Asia Minor, as certainly Paul would have been. Christian sacrifices, however, there are, and of another class of them are we also reminded (16): "To do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." To care for others, ministering to them in their need, is a feature, and that an acceptable one, of Christian sacrifice. The Philippians understood that when sending to minister to Paul in his prison at Rome. And Paul accepted this service as an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God (Phil. 4:18). To offer these of course neither a priest, nor an altar, nor the death of some fresh victim is required. Such sacrifices as praises to God are the outflow of the heart in worship; and doing good, etc., is the activity of the Divine nature displayed in the saint — the practical manifestation of Christian love.

Verse 15. "By Him, therefore," etc. Outside the camp the Christian finds himself with God. His altar and the preparation for His acceptable worship, are provided there. It is by Jesus, whom the world disowns, that we are called to offer now the sacrifice of praise. That praise finds no free utterance within the camp. For it can be rendered only by the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and have no confidence in the flesh. Their rejoicing is in Christ Jesus. The pleasant odour of their offering is their believing celebration of His love. The sacrifice of praise which God accepts is the fruit of lips which make confession of His name.* The praise which God thus looks for from the heirs of His salvation is not to speak only at particular seasons, but to be always on our lips. It is to be a continual sacrifice. For it is the believer's recognition of an abiding Saviour. Time and circumstance, which tell so powerfully on the children's natural experiences, are incapable of altering the Spirit's note of praise. For Christ, who is the song of the believer, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. In Him we find a joy unspeakable and full of glory, amid the needful heaviness of our manifold temptations. Praise is the Spirit's contrast to the godless hilarity of the natural man. To be abounding in the faith, with thanksgiving, is a true token of the Christian's spiritual growth. With a solemn consciousness of his position in a world which is not of the Father, the believer is to put away, as inconvenient and incongruous, the former things. While the world rejoices in its own inventions, unmindful of the woe in which its laugh must be extinguished (Luke 6:25), God's children are to stand arrayed in their Divinely-provided comeliness of thanksgiving and praise (Ps. 33:1; Eph. 5:4; James 5:13).

(Verse 1). The thirty-fourth Psalm presents the experience by which a godly man learnt to bless the LORD at all times. It is easy to bless the Lord sometimes, when circumstances are favourable, but only faith, that that has proved His goodness and faithfulness, can bless the Lord at all times. Thus lifted above all circumstances the Lord is praised "continually."

The essence of their hypocrisy lay in the profession of worship, consisting in outward ceremonials, when inwardly their hearts were utterly estranged. Nothing counts with God if the heart be not right.