Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6
The final verse in the greatest praise book in the entire bible exhorts readers, above all else to - “praise the Lord.”
Thinking about this recently, my mind was turned to Israel and the tribe of Judah in particular, whom God poured out His abundant undeserved grace upon. He delivered them, He protected them, He fought for them, He gave them a land, He blessed them above all other peoples. But how sad it was to read how Jeremiah was told by God to remind them of their rebellious, pathetic and ungrateful response. In Jeremiah 13:11 we are told that God longed for Judah to cling to Him as a waistband “that they might be for me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory, but they did not listen.”
God longs for His redeemed people to praise Him. He longs for His people to give him glory. But like Israel, we in our day often do not listen. The reason being we are not like a waistband that clings closely to the Lord - we become a ‘wasted’ waistband, so to speak that becomes “ruined.” We respond so often to the Lord with silence, or even worse with selfishness and sin that like a ruined waistband (Jer 13:7) we completely miss God’s purpose for us.
But we are His redeemed. We are God’s chosen people & blessed with every spiritual blessing. How can we not give rightful praise and glory to the Lord? I like how C.H. Spurgeon puts it: “Doth not all nature around me praise God? If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe. Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration? Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire? Hath not the whole earth a voice? And shall I, can I, silent be?” [grace quotes]