Psalm 146:1-2 (NLT) Praise the Lord! Let all that I am praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.

The Word of God encourages us over and over to praise the Lord our God. It tells us to praise Him for what He has created, for what He has done, for His goodness, mercy and love, and for the simple but awesome fact that He is the Sovereign Lord over the heavens and the earth. The Word also tells us that there is a chorus of worship and praise going on perpetually from the inhabitants of heaven to His creation on earth below.

It is good to praise the Lord. But we must know that there is praise that reaches the heavens and praise that never goes past the ceiling. There is praise that doesn't go anywhere going on in many places. That kind of praise God absolutely ignores. It is performance praise. In other words, it is being sung for entertainment purposes or to make the ones who are singing and playing look good and gain popularity. It can even be a money-making proposition as there is a lot of money to be made if you "make it" in the Christian music world. But even in many churches, we miss the mark completely. As human beings, we have the ability to sing with our mouths without having our hearts engaged with what we are singing. If our hearts are not involved in our praises to God, then He isn't listening. God only hears and receives praise that comes from the heart.

In the Psalm above, the psalmist goes for the highest form of praise to the Lord by engaging his whole being into it. In other words, when he says, "let all that I am praise the Lord," he is saying that he is praising the Lord without holding anything back. That means that his mind, his heart, his soul and his emotions are all working together in unity with one focus: to praise the God of our salvation. This kind of praise not only pleases God, but it works to draw us closer to knowing the Lord better and better and leads to much spiritual growth in our lives. It also is the pathway to great joy because it attracts the manifest presence of God, and His manifest presence is exhilarating to the soul, resulting in what the Word of God calls fullness of joy and joy unspeakable and full of glory.

No wonder the psalmist decided that he would praise the Lord as long as he was alive right up to his last dying breath. And after his last breath here on earth, his first breath in heaven with Jesus will be used to continue to worship and praise our loving Lord and Savior. Don't miss out by praising the Lord without having your whole being engaged. Just ask God to give you a revelation of His glory and you won't have to be prodded to praise Him that way because it will just come pouring out of you when you get a sense of how awesome and worthy He is. Let's resolve to forever praise our Lord Jesus with everything that we have and we will experience the glory of God here on earth and continuing on to when we see Jesus face to face.

Pastor Joey Vazquez