Most Prudent

July/Holiness

30 July 2010

Who is most prudent? He who praises before death what he fears after death.

- Colman mac Beognai, Aipgitir Chrabaid (Irish, 7th century)

"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

- Matthew 10.28

I onced asked a group of men why we should praise God. There was a long silence, then one of the group spoke up and said, "Well, I praise God for all the good things He does for me, all the ways He's blessed me."

"And what," I asked, "if He never did any of that? Would He still be worthy of your praise?" I had to answer my own question. Which simply points to a problem in contemporary Christianity that is so common and subtle that we might not even notice when it begins to affect us.

It's the problem of Me. Is God really worthy of praise primarily because He does something for me? Is Christianity all about me and whatever happiness or good things come to me because I'm a Christian? I thought Christianity was about knowing God and, in knowing Him, finding fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore?

Certainly there is much in God - in His being, attributes, and unceasing work - that is worthy of praise. We can never exhaust the many reasons we have to give praise and thanks to God, quite apart from anything He ever does for us! Thus, it is most prudent for us to praise Him, increasingly, day by day.

Is there enough praise in your life? If not, it may indicate not so much an ignorance of how to praise as a very shallow knowledge of Him Who is worthy of all your praise, all day long. Let us praise God, beloved, all we can, as often as we can. It's a good warm-up for dwelling with Him forever.

July Exercise Part 4: For the rest of this month let's work on developing a plan, following the free the brochure, Called to Be Witnesses and the My Personal Mission Field brochure, for pondering our paths more purposefully, and with greater Kingdom results.

Today in ReVision: Not God's Will? - Good news: God doesn't want you to be sick (sorry, I'm having a little trouble letting this go).

Also at the website, we have begun our next Kingdom Civics series on the "Founding Documents" of the Kingdom, and Every Thought Captive Satan, Bound (soon to be a Waxed Tablet book!) features the next installment of

This Month's Download: Called to Be Witnesses - Give a copy to your friends and begin talking together about how you can become more serious about piety.

We hope you'll visit our book store and check out the resources available to help you live the Christian life. And let us hear from you.

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.