Day 11 of 21 • This day’s reading
Psalms 148:1-6
Acts 16:23-33
John 10:10
Day 11: Incorporating the Prayer of Praise Into Your Life
You’ve passed the halfway mark of this fasting season! Regardless of your experience so far, prayer and fasting are physical, emotional, and spiritual battles. Persistence and the right attitudes can motivate our journey, but there are times when expressing adoration to Christ can lift our spirits. We’ve unpacked in yesterday’s devotion that thanksgiving is expressing our gratitude for what God has done for us. Yet, the Psalms illustrate that praises should follow after thanksgiving when we enter His presence.
Prayers of praise are speaking well of God, about His greatness, wonder, majesty, and transcendent qualities—things that He is and we’re not. Like thanksgiving, praise streams from a humble heart to admit His pre-eminence. When we magnify God, we’re expanding our own faith of His glory, rather than an augmentation of His pride. Praise puts God in His rightful place in our lives as God the Creator, Lord, and Father. While our experiences can build our understanding of Him, learning of God’s qualities from Scripture can grow our vocabulary for praise.
Praise gives us insight into God’s perspective, shifting our internal position to see the breakthrough we need. Life can be full of ‘stuff’. Still, we should praise God despite it all, in the midst of the chaos. Jesus promises a life of abundance, and a part of gaining God’s perspective during emptiness is to persist, knowing that your life is full in Christ. Praise lifts our eyes from the circumstances and upon God’s grace and strength towards healing and victory.
We tend to underestimate that praise is a weapon in spiritual warfare. Especially when we’re claiming territory in this time of prayer and fasting, we’re disarming the enemy’s plans. Like Paul and Silas in prison, their internal conviction of God’s power literally broke their chains. Our battles are God’s, but we need to acknowledge His competence in faith to position Him to fight our battles. So every time your stomach grumbles today, put praise on your lips. This may usher in a moment of breakthrough into your life.
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