O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. :I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.(Psalms 63:1 - 8, NIV)

This tells us just about all we need to know about why we should praise God, why we need to praise him and how we should praise him. There is virtually nothing we can leave out of this extract: it is all crucial.

Why Praise God?

Why do we need to praise? Because without God, life is an arid existence; having experienced him, there is no time of day, no condition of need, through which God cannot, should not, be praised.

Do we sometimes have difficulty praising God? Then, indeed, God will give us the grace to praise him if we seek it. Why? Because we need to praise him.

Why? Giving God the glory, which in any case, is his by right means that we are then able to call upon him in times of difficulty:

Offer to God praise as your sacrifice

and fulfil your vows to the Most High;

Then call upon me in time of distress;

I will rescue you, and you shall glorify me

(Psalm 50. 14 - 15, NAB)

If we cannot appreciate the utter greatness of God, then we should praise him at least for selfish reasons. In this psalm, there follows a warning and a promise we shall do well to remember (vv 22, 23) . Those who forget God risk the possibility of finding themselves in situations from which they need rescue -- but it is the person who offers praise as a sacrifice who will find the help of God when they need it. If God forsakes us, who will rescue us?

Praise As Deliverance From Evil

Moreover, praise is an instrument of our own deliverance from evil, a means through which we can be set free. It is not that praise is undertaken for that reason, but is, rather, an outcome of it, since Satan and his minions cannot stand to hear God being praised

The Israelites even went to war, and won their wars through praising God. For example, after consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendour of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: "Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures for ever." In 2 Chronicles 20. 21, 22, we are told that, through their praise, God responded and the armies of Moab and Ammon, which were invading Judah, were defeated as the Israelites sang to and praised God. What a wonderful thing it would be to see our present day military leaders actively and openly praise God as they encounter the enemy!

Praise As God's Right

Yet we do not praise God for what we can get out it, nor as a condescension to him. We praise God because it is his right. We have no right to withhold it, whatever our own situation, whatever our own problems and difficulties. Psalms 138: 2 advises us to praise the name of God because of his love and faithfulness,and because he has exalted his name and his word above all things. If God's name and word is exalted above all things, then there ican be no question as to praise being his right.

Praise is like love: an act of our will. Sometimes we shall feel moved to praise God. Fine! That always helps. But if we only praise God when and because we feel like it, the chances are that we shall not praise him very often. Moreover, praise is not just similar to love, it is, or should be, a willing, eager expression of our love. We might ask: how much does this or that individual love God? How can we know? It is very easy to see how much a person loves God, as against how much they love themselves: simply ask how much? how often? and fervently do they praise God? That is a completely reliable test.