Scripture reading: Revelation 5:8-10
The beasts and the elders in Revelation 5 had “harps, and golden vials.” When we look in the Hebrew language, we find that JUDAH means PRAISE. The harp is made for praising God. Harps mean God-harps that are praising Him. Many ask if God really needs us to praise Him saying that He is a wonderful God or that He is great and marvelous. No. That is not praise. You could say “God is marvelous” all day and all night and you would not spend one hour praising God.
Praise comes from the heart and heals the heart. It is an instrument of God to create the glory of God within the individual. When the angels in heaven praise God, it is like their dinner time. When they open their hearts to praise God and to glorify God for the things He has done and for who He is, then the glory of God flows in. Praise is a KEY that opens the hearts of angels and of men. When we apply the key to the heart, God flows into it. It is not possible for the devil to come in when we are praising God in Spirit and in truth. There is a contact and a flow of energy which comes from God to man when man opens up his heart to God and the enemy, Satan, cannot interfere. He has to keep far away. This is why God says we are to pray and praise. “Praise is comely,” the Bible says. It is not everybody who can praise. Your whole being must be attuned to God and to praise. There is a praise, and there is a Praise, and there is a PRAISE! There is high Praise and glorious PRAISE.
I remember years ago, some brethren brought in a thing they called “high praise.” It grieved me because it was the lowest form of praise I had ever heard. The kind that takes you down emotionally rather than up. It was the kind of thing you could see for years and years in some of the churches. People would stomp their feet, bam, bam, bam, and everyone began to go bam, bam, bam. Drums began to beat together and the people began to jump together and there were no words. Brethren, man cannot praise God without words. We must have words to praise God. If we begin to sing a song and we are only going by the beat or by the music, we are shutting out God. The only way to have God join you in your praise is for your heart to respond to God and to His Word. You start singing a song “I thank you Lord, I thank you Jesus” – a simple song without many words to it. “I thank you Jesus, for you have brought me out a mighty long way, a mighty long way, thank you Lord.” When I begin to sing, I begin to remember the depths of hell I was in and how God reached down and pulled me out.
This thought brings me back to a vision I had in the days just before salvation, when I found myself down in this GREAT PIT. It was hopeless. I could hardly see the sky for the distance; I was down in the pit. The sides were sheer and straight and I would fight and claw my way up only to reach a point and then I would fall back down. It was hopeless, but I was still fighting. Then suddenly there was a sound like a wind and it came down into the pit, swooped me up like a whirlwind and threw me way up on the side of the pit. As I clung on, still only half way up, another surge came and took me up and carried me right out. I landed in woodland where great big globs of honeycomb were up in the trees, and the honey was just dropping from the trees.
I remember these things as I sing a song thanking Jesus. It means something to me. It lifts my soul and the energy of God begins to flow into me, because I am praising God.
(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pg. 90-91)
Thought for today: Let us use the key of praise to open our hearts up to God.
Sonlight Devotional 
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