Our joys... Our peines are from subjects of praise

At the school of the Holy Spirit there is much to learn. Some lessons are more difficult than others, but are almost always the most valuable. Most of God's children have not yet learned the lesson that we are dealing with today ; It is not easy but, as soon as it is put into practice, it gives excellent results.

Here is the text which reveals to us a mystery hidden in the Holy Scriptures :

Give thanks continually for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:20).

"Give thanks for all things to God continually"

How easy it is to thank and praise the Lord for the happy events of our life ! For the wonderful prayers, for the divine grace for our material needs, for the refreshing blessings, such as the spring rain on the altered soil, the glorious spiritual experiences and the daily proofs of God's goodness and faithfulness . But things change when it comes to praising him for trials, sicknesses, losses, setbacks, and for all that is of nature and displeasing us. However, the above verse includes both.

On the day of the Harvest Festival, a series of meetings began in a certain town. I was led by the Spirit of God to preach, on that evening, on the text already quoted : "To give continually graces for all things to God." There was a woman in the congregation, afflicted with a terrible affection in the eyes of which she had suffered all her life. She was wearing the strongest glasses, but could not read more than five minutes in a row - she always reserved those minutes for the study of the Bible - after which she had to stop because her eyes burned as if they had been applied An incandescent iron. Many preachers had prayed for her without any visible result.

One morning she remembered my preaching about the power of praise. She began to pray : "Lord, I thank you for all my suffering caused by this eye disease." She was still on her knees when suddenly the power of God descended on her and she was instantly and forever cured of this painful and painful affection.

Through practical obedience to the divine exhortation : "Give thanks continually for all things to God the Father," she obtained deliverance. M. N. no longer needed glasses, she could read the smallest characters without pain and trouble for hours. In response to thanksgiving and praise, God had granted a perfect healing. Where prayer fails in appearance, it is praise that obtains success. Besides, is praise not the highest expression of faith which is pleasing to God ? Is God not constrained, in a way, to honor such faith ?

Praise does not replace prayer, it is rather the support. The proportion between prayer and thanksgiving is found in the Psalms. We read : "In the evening, in the morning and at noon I sigh and I groan and he will hear my voice" (Psalm 55:18). David thus declares his decision to pray three times a day. How many Christians still think it is enough to pray only once during the day !

"Seven times a day I praise thee for the laws of thy righteousness" (Psalm 119: 164). It is here that we find ourselves on what scale God measures praise and praise : More than twice praise than prayer ! Have we not, for the most part, inverted these propositions and prayed twice as much as we praise the Lord ?

I was kneeling in prayer lately, and I seemed to hear the divine voice : If my people could praise me better, they would have less prayer requests to present. That would be a good principle. If we praised Him more, God could work in such a way that He would meet our needs even before we had exposed Him to Him.

Many Christians are always beginning to pray for the same subjects without ever seeing each other. They turn away, discouraged, because they have lost faith. If you are precisely in this state, friend reader, thank God, for he wants to tell you yet another way. Begin to praise him for the unpleasant situation in which you find yourself and for which you would like to go out so much. Praise him precisely for what oppresses you and makes you suffer and wait for him because he will intervene wonderfully and prepare a miraculous issue that will plunge you into admiration.

A missionary, on a station in China, was infected with smallpox, the scourge so dreaded in East Asia. At the moment when her end was near, God gave her a vision: She saw an immense balance, the trays of which were replaced by two large baskets; On one of them was written : "Prayers" and on the other : "Praise". She noticed that the basket of praises was at the top, while the prayers touched the ground. There had been much intercession for her recovery, but she was apparently always worse. She then appealed to the missionaries of the station and asked them to praise and thank the Lord with all their heart. Her friends thought she was delirious and that her end was approaching. However, they all began to praise God.

The vision appeared again to this missionary and she saw the basket of praises descend slowly. She immediately exclaimed : "My friends, fill the basket with praise!" The assistants continued to bring up to God their accents of gratitude and adoration, until, for the third time, the vision appeared to the sick man. As the basket came all the way down, the power of God came upon the missionary and she was instantly cured of this terrible evil.

Shortly afterwards, she dressed, went down to the street where she preached for half an hour, without feeling the least discomfort. Praise in common had attracted the power of God and made all traces of disease disappear from his body.

Miss S., through her consecration and devotion to the Lord's cause, was an instrument chosen by him for the ministry of preaching and that of Christian literature; She was in great blessing to her fellows.

She had just organized a series of lectures in a certain town, when suddenly she was the victim of an accident and had to be escorted back to her home in great suffering. In his house remained a convinced atheist who, while admiring the depth of his thoughts, nevertheless rejected the Gospel preaching. He was present when she was taken home and offered to call a doctor and pay the fees himself. She kindly declined his offer and let her understand that she had a private doctor. As he insisted on knowing his name, she replied without fear: His name is "Jesus Christ". Angry at his answer, he left and went to discuss the matter with one of his friends.

While lying on her bed, she was struggling with the most terrible sufferings, the Lord said to her : "Give thanks at all times for all things !". After a brief internal struggle, she obeyed and began to praise the Lord for her sufferings and to thank him for allowing this accident at a time that seemed so inopportune. Whilst from his heart were accents of gratitude and thanksgiving ; The Spirit of God go on her, and she felt a hand resting on the painful places of her bruised body. At that very moment, all suffering disappeared and the swelling began to diminish visibly. She got up and thanked the Lord for the healing he had just given her.

Soon after, the neighbor of Miss S. entered and was amazed to find her completely cured and filled with unspeakable joy. He asked what had happened.

"I have just had the visit of my private doctor," she replied, "and he has put me on foot again."

The atheist was so impressed with this testimony that he withdrew to his home and accepted Christ in his life. He related his experience to his atheistic friend, and he also gave himself to Christ. At first sight it would have seemed incomprehensible to praise for such an accident, but when it is realized that it was the means of the conversion of two atheists, the incomprehensible word has no place here.

David cries in Psalm 37, verse 4 : "Make the LORD your delights and he will give you what your heart desires." Our praise and thanksgiving is proof that we make him our delight and that we approve of His plans and His will toward us. Nothing is more agreeable to him than such an inner attitude. Praise wins the victory. Therefore, David declares in Psalm 34: 2 : I will praise the Lord at all times. His praise will always be in my mouth.

C. S. Tubby