We have looked at Philippians 4:6 concerning prayer: “Be careful [or anxious] for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God.”
In this verse, God not only told us to pry or make request, He told us how to do it—with thanksgiving!
The Church has spent far too little time studying thanksgiving and praise. Christians are not missing it so much in their faith walk or their love walk, but they’re missing it in their praise. We have underestimated the power that is available to us when we give praise to God.
The Bible emphasizes the power of praise in the following story: “And at midnight Paul and Silas PRAYED, and SANG PRAISES unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bands were loosed” (Acts 16:25, 26).
Paul and Silas were put in jail for preaching the gospel. They had been placed in the inner most part of the prison, in a dungeon. They had been beaten, and their backs were bleeding. Their feet was in stocks. Yet, they prayed and sang praises—and their deliverance came!
Paul and Silas’ experience helps us to see the benefits of praising God. It helps us to live above negative circumstances, we must pray and praise.
No matter what adverse circumstances show up, we can experience the victory that God intends for us. But just as Paul and Silas did, we will have to hold fast to these three points about praise:
DON’T PANIC: When life’s difficult situations arise, don’t panic! PRAISE instead.
You may be thinking, “It’s easy to praise God when all is well, but things don’t always go right! Things don’t always go our way or according to our plans. So how do we praise when things are not going right?”
A Christian can view trouble and problems from Jesus’ perspective: He has overcome the world—and He did it for you and me! If we can get that truth deep within our heart and act on it, we can resist the urge to panic. We can “be of good cheer,” by yielding to God in praise.
I’m sure Paul and Silas had to fight the urge to panic when they found themselves locked up in that dark prison. The devil was no different then as he is today. He most likely said negative things to them, such as “it’s over for you guys. They’re going to take you out of here in the morning and plant you six foot under. You’ll never make it out of here alive.”
Imagine for a moment what it was like in that prison cell. Picture in your mind the four walls seeming to close in on these two men. Imagine the thick, damp darkness and the stench of human waste that surrounded them.
They probably did not feel like being of good cheer! They didn’t feel like praising God. Nevertheless, they emerged from their circumstance by tapping into the supernatural power of God, and they did it through their praise!
You may not be in a literal prison today, but circumstances can arise that cause us to feel bound. Health issues, financial problems, family situations can seem to close in on us. Maybe you’re dealing with false accusations, betrayal, and senseless conflict. All of this can cause us to panic if we don’t keep our guard up.
As long as we’re on this earth, we will experience trouble and problems at one point or another. How we react to them will determine whether we have victory or defeat. Yielding to panic and fear will only add to our trouble. Panic will magnify the problem until it becomes even bigger in our eyes than it really is.
The devil loves to get us into negative situations and try to make them bigger than they actually are. Most of the time we panic, not because of the problem, but because of our thinking. Sometimes we panic when the problem doesn’t even exist. Yielding to fear robs us of our faith, our joy, and our peace.
Nothing you are going through can diminish God’s love for you. IF you will rely on His Word about His love, you will begin to praise Him, and you’ll find deliverance. In God’s love is the power to overcome!
Romans 8:35, 37-39
Whatever trouble you face, we are not just conquerors, we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS!
Romans 8:32 declares, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Since God did not spare His own Son who died on the Cross on Calvary’s hill, do you think He would withhold any good thing from us? A thousand times---no! John 3:16 tells us that God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son for our restoration and deliverance, so you can rest assured that He wants to deliver you out of your tests and trials.
DON’T BE PROBLEM CONSCIOUS: Often folks focus on the imperfections of life. They focus on the negative instead of the positive—on what they don’t have instead of what they do have.
No one is exempt from problems, but we don’t have to dwell on them. This world is not perfect, and people are not perfect. The only perfect One to live on this earth was crucified on a cross. Thank God for Jesus’ perfection, because it is through His perfection that we have “life more abundantly” (John 10:10b). It is through His death, burial and resurrections that we have been delivered and set free from the chains of sin, sickness, and disease. It is through His perfection that we have a promise of a positive future.
You don’t have to let the problems of life distract you from the goodness of God. A trial is not worth being separated from the power of God. When we fail to pray and to praise Him, we allow negativism to shroud our faith, causing us to lose focus on God and His Word.
Nothing can separate you from God unless YOU allow it! We don’t have to focus on imperfections and problems. Instead, we can focus on God’s perfection.
Our imperfections fade from our consciousness when we gaze at His perfection. Ever heard the song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus?” It goes something like this, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
You cannot look to Jesus and remain focused on all the problems around you. When you begin to focus on Him and His power, everything else grows dim in comparison.
It’s a question of focus. We should focus on redemption, not on destruction, on deliverance, not on bondage. We should focus on joy, not sorrow and unhappiness, on peace, not confusion.
When you’re faced with a test, it would help if you’d speak out loud that “GOD IS BIGGER THAN MY PROBLEM!” If you will get hold of that simple truth, it will change your focus from your problem to your answer and from negative to the positive according to God’s Word.
Paul and Silas began praising God, and it helped them remain God-conscious instead of problem conscious. When you find yourself in a storm or in a dark prison, keep yourself conscious of God. That way you’ll not be defeat conscious.
The best think to do when overcoming the devil and the problems he brings your way is to keep the Word ever before you. Quote it and praise God continually for His Word. Listen to good Christian music, especially songs written about deliverance.
Our deliverance is in the blood of the Lamb. The Bible says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). As far as God was concerned, one final lamb was slain on the Cross. Up until the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, many lambs had been slain as atonement for the people’s sins. Every year, the Jews had to slay a lamb as a sacrifice for sin.
Jesus “the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8), shed His blood on Golgotha’s hill. We don’t need any other blood to be shed for the remission of sin. All we need to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and confess Him as Savior and Lord, and we are delivered from sin.
That means Christ has made you free! The devil may think he has you bound, but Jesus has made you free!
DON’T BE A PESSIMIST! Have you ever met a pessimist? A pessimist is one that doesn’t expect good things to happen. It’s been joked about that if you need to borrow money, do so from a pessimist, he doesn’t expect you to pay him back!
Of course that is a joke because we should pay our debts. The point is that a pessimist always looks at everything from a negative viewpoint.
You cannot keep your focus on God and expect the worst! When you begin focusing on God and His Word, and talking about the things of God, about His power and goodness, your outlook will change.
Some people are natural complainers. They find fault with everything. They gripe by choice. Over time, they become more cynical and become pessimistic. They don’t experience any of the glory and power of God, because they don’t expect any of His glory or power.
Paul and Silas could have become cynical in that prison. They could have lost their focus and become bitter instead of better. They could have doubted God’s love for them—His willingness and His ability to deliver them. They could have said, “God, why did you let this happen? We were serving you. We were preaching the gospel for you.”
They didn’t! In their midnight hour, they lifted their voices and prayed and sang praises to God. They didn’t give in to panic, to problems, or pessimism!
Pessimism is the opposite of faith: it is doubt in action! The pessimist has the attitude, “I don’t really believe God will do it.” The person that walks by faith says, “I believe God can and will do it for me! I believe I receive my answer and I have it now!” You can’t exercise faith and be pessimistic at the same time!
Christians have every reason to be optimistic; they Bible says that God is on our side! Romans 8:31 says, “If God be for us, who can be against us” We have every reason to praise the Lord—because we know He is on our side!
Philippians 4:6-8 - When we pray in faith and confidence according to His Word, He promises to guard our hearts and minds with His peace (verse 7). That supernatural peace grounds us so that we won’t give way to panic and fear.
Verse 8 tells us how to focus on the answer, not on the problem, and how to prevail over pessimism—by thinking only on good, positive things.
Praising God is a powerful thing, because it demonstrates your faith and allows God to show Himself strong on your behalf. Praising God opens the door for His blessings to fall on you. IT gives you an avenue of witness—praise is contagious. When you continually praise God, others will want to know how you can have such a joyful attitude in the midst of problems, tests, and trials. They will want to know how they, too, can stay positive in a negative world!
