Psalm 22:3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises of Israel (KJV)
To inhabit means to dwell, to be at ease, to sit down, and this scripture tells us God 'inhabits' the praises of His people. I just get this picture of God coming into our room and being at ease with us, relaxing, sitting down and getting comfortable ready to talk with us and share the affairs of the day the joys and the concerns, to bless us with His presence.
Why would He do that? Because we've welcomed Him in with our praises and thanksgiving. That doesn't necessarily even mean we've sung Him a song it just means we've let Him know how very much we appreciate Him and His goodness to us. We've let Him know we think He's above all others for us, that without His presence our day is lost and empty; that we love Him.
When I want to praise someone I don't go up to them and say or sing 'I praise you, I praise you.' They'd look at me a bit oddly but if I go up and say what an amazing job they made of something, or what a lovely person they are, then they will really appreciate it. Meaningful praise is in the details when we take the time to put into words why He is so awesome and worthy of praise.
God tells us throughout scripture not to complain and grumble and part of the reason for that is because He can't 'inhabit' our complaints. God doesn't 'do' complaining and He even goes so far as to tell us that when we do complain and moan we're actually opening the door to the enemy - not to Him! (1 Corinthians 10:10) Apart from that it makes us so grumpy!!
I know I want the Lord to be at ease, to draw close to me and me to Him at any given moment, so I can share that moment with Him and acknowledge His part in it; to stop and maybe take 2 minutes to acknowledge His goodness in giving me the breath I breathe, His love in reconciling me to Him so I can fellowship with Him, to praise Him for food on the table when so many are without. The list is endless. How can we not praise Him?
How about you? Will you join with me in taking our eyes off ourselves and our world, and take our praise to a whole new level in 2021 and see God inhabit our praises? In His presence is fullness of joy.
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