DIAGNOSIS: You have a body but you are a spirit. As you must exercise
your body to maintain physical fitness; you must exercise your spirit to
maintain a healthy spirituality. One of the best ways to activate and
energize your innermost being is with the daily practice of praise.
PRESCRIPTION: Take a big dose of John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me out
of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Notice, this
prescription is for any and every believer. It’s not limited to
super-star Christians who are gifted with special enlightenment. This
promise is for you. You have locked up within yourself, not just tiny
trickles but
rivers. Living a life-style of praise is not a
matter of getting more of God into your life. Rather, a vital
spirituality is a matter of opening the flood gates of your soul and
letting out what you already have flowing within you.
PROGNOSIS:
Think of a garden hose lying in the sun. When you first turn on the
faucet, the water is warm and tastes like plastic. As it flows, it gets
cooler and sweeter, loosing that artificial flavor. That’s my prognosis
for you fellow traveler. As you become a practitioner of praise so much
of the superficiality and staleness in your life will be washed away,
bringing refreshment to yourself and others.
PRACTICE: As a general
practitioner I subscribe to the therapeutic principle that love will
find its way into an open heart. But as a praise specialist, I like to
emphasize a reverse therapy. Love will find its way out of an open
heart. As love flows out, the stream becomes a river, which carries us
along on the current of caring. So find someone that you discern is
gifted in some area. Perhaps they don’t recognize their gift but you
have observed it in action. Without flattery (which is manipulative)
affirm that person in a simple and direct way. You don’t want to spread
it on too thickly causing them embarrassment. Just let them know that
you appreciate their attitude of kindness which has lifted your spirit.
CHALLENGE: Why should any believer stand on the bank and just observe, while others are splashing and frolicking in a river of living water, which cleanses the soul and inspires praise in the heart? We can find ways to release the indwelling spiritual resources which are flowing just below our level of consciousness.
Dr Praise #2
DIAGNOSIS: We often think of body, soul, and spirit as we proceed from the external to the internal. The Bible reverses that order and speaks of spirit (the core of our being) the soul (the functions of mind, emotion, and will) and the body. We need a therapy that starts in our spirit and proceeds outwardly. Outward therapies often do not penetrate deeply enough to reach the problem of pessimism. I would like to recommend the Holy Spirit who releases into the inner depths of our human spirit the joy of Jesus which radiates out in a more positive attitude and which ministers emotional and physical health.
PRESCRIPTION: Today, I would like to write you a script from Hebrews 1:9. It describes our Savior in these terms: “God anointed him with the oil of gladness beyond his contemporaries.” When you close your eyes and think of God do you see a frowning face? Do you visualize an angry deity, who can’t wait for the slightest reason to rain wrath on your head? It’s time to replace that with the smiling face of Jesus. He did not come to take the wind out of our sails, the spring out of our step, or the blue out of our skies. He came that “we might have life and have it more abundantly.” To have just a fraction of his cheerful disposition, his positive personality, rub off on us, would turn our mourning into gladness. “He that has seen me has seen the Father,” our Savior said. To see the Christ through the eyes of faith is to get a whole new vision of the depths of divine love.
PROGNOSIS: As we turn our eyes upon Jesus, we see that our Creator is everything an ideal Father ought to be. We are welcome to climb up on His lap, throw our arms around Him and call him “Daddy.” We can look up to a star-studded sky and affirm, “My Heavenly Father did that!” We can feel warmed by Papa’s love and sheltered in His care.
PRACTICE: Through the week let your heart-sing with joy: “This is my Father’s world and to my listening ear, all nature sings and ‘round me rings the music of the spheres.” Our God is not an impersonal force; a first cause; an unmoved mover; the eternal ground of all being. That works well for the philosophical, the rational level of our minds. But deep within us is a crying need for personal relationship. The God Jesus revealed to us can meet this need. “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.” Jesus told us that not one sparrow can fall to the ground without the Father knowing it and we are worth more than many sparrows.
CHALLENGE: Why should any believer get stuck in the slough of despondency and be mired in the mud of murmuring. With renewed spiritual resources, we can turn our pessimism into praise and glory in the gladness of God’s Son. Let us determine to be loyal to the royal that is within us.
Dr Praise #3
DIAGNOSIS: As one who has provided pastoral care for over half a century, I have observed that people are often constricted by the smallness of their self centered world. They need to break out of their boxes of me, myself and mine and be stretched by a grander more glorious vision of God. There is nothing more expansive than contemplating the dimensions of divine love.
PRESCRIPTION: Ephesians 3:18-19 is by no means a bitter pill. Rather it is a mind altering medication. “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
PROGNOSIS: Our containers are too small. In order to be filled with the fullness of God we need larger vessels. Our borders of bias and our parameters of prejudice need to be transcended by something as expansive as the universe. That something is the very essence of God which is love: a selfless, sacrificial love that Jesus brought into this world from beyond time and space.
PRACTICE: Let me suggest this exercise. Bring alongside Ephesians 3:18 the most familiar verse in the entire Bible, John 3:16. Notice how they so beautifully dove-tail. What is the breadth of divine love? “God so loved the world….” We often draw circles to shut people out who are different from us. God draws circles which are inclusive of the whole world and everyone in it. What is the length of love? The answer is again in John 3:16-“that he gave his only begotten son.” God went to great lengths to demonstrate his love for us-he cared enough to send the best. His love reaches as far as the cross. What about the depths of love? “That we should not perish….” God sent his son into a perishing world. Truly there is no bottom to the heart of God. Corey Ten Boom (who survived the holocaust) was fond of saying: “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” Let’s practice on the heights of divine love: “…but have everlasting life.” The goal of love is to find us in the depths of despair and lift us to the heights of life eternal.
