God is worthy of praise

Some days I am convinced that the single most important shift in thinking that a Christian can undergo is to glorify and praise God for who he is, and not merely for how he has dealt with us. In other words, God in all of his attributes and perfections, ought to be always before our eyes and exalted in our prayers. Yes our covenant God's “steadfast love endures forever” and we are the prime beneficiaries. But this is praiseworthy not just because we benefit, but because of this perfection in itself. There is rarely space to talk about it but it genuinely irks me when people ascribe all kinds of praise to God for something that works out to their liking (read earthly benefit), saying “it was a God thing,” as if they are the central reason that certain things have come to pass in God’s providence.

 

And yet, we know so little of God’s purposes, except for his promise that he does, in fact, order all things to certain ends, which includes the good of his children. Yet, we only have a passing, surface-level understanding of what is good for us! None of our epiphanies about God’s providence and provision for us are comparable to what shall finally be plain once the fog of this world has lifted and our faith is sight. But I digress. My point is that our praises should be big enough to acknowledge that ALL of him is praiseworthy, not just his works, much less the works that we understand, much less the works that we understand and are happy about in the moment. What better way to keep this in mind than to meditate first and foremost on who God is, not just a small sliver of what he does?

In light of this, it’s shocking that sinful therapeutically-minded humans demand unconditional love “for who I am,” while somehow demanding that God — in all his perfections and excellencies — first give us a reason to love him.