Sacrifice of Praise

Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. (NIV)

The Amplified ends with "which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name."

And the Message ends with "Let's take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus' name."

We are no longer under the Jewish law. We no longer offer a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins. Jesus did that for us once and for all.

The sacrifice we are to offer is to openly profess His name, thankfully acknowledging and confessing and glorifying Him by what we say in Jesus' name.

And yet often our time is spent openly with God in that quite place inside, in our own home. We think of praise as what we say in church on Sunday when the praise and worship team leads us through a series of songs in that direction.

Well, that is not enough. We are to take our place outside with Jesus. We are to go outside the four walls of our house and speak His name in what we do, how we act, how we react, and what we say.

We are to be Jesus to the world around us. We are to give Him all the glory and when we reach out and touch someone we do it in the name of Jesus.

This is the sacrifice of praise we are to openly make daily.

His Glory

I believe "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" in the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) is telling us that whatever His will in Heaven is, we want the same here on earth. And for that to happen we need to be in the Glory Cloud of His presence. We need to be under His anointing.

When that happens deliverance happens. Healing happens. Miracles happen. And all in the blink of an eye. No one has to do anything. God moves and people are set free.

Yes, I believe God answers prayer with or without the presence of the anointing. The difference is in the timing. When we are in His Glory, we are in timeless reality and what could take days or weeks or years to happen in the natural, if at all, happens in a moment of time.

More Glory = Less Time

Now you ask, can someone be in an atmosphere of healing and not be healed? Yes, they can. Where we are physically is not necessarily where we choose our mind and spirit to be. We have the right to ignore the presence of God and as such will not be touched by what is freely available.

Isaiah 60:1-2
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. (NIV)

Praise and Worship can tap into the Glory Realm. It can bring down a strong anointing of God in the congregation of Spirit filled believers. Holy Spirit's presence permeates the atmosphere and people are touched. The anointing is an accelerator. It speeds up the process. The enemy has to flee in His presence.

Psalm 91:1
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. (NIV)

We need to dwell in His presence, in the secret place. But, how do we get there? Praise and worship can play a great part in opening Heaven so the anointing is present.

Our music should being with praise--fast tempo songs that make us dance, jump, and shout to the Lord. It should continue until worship comes, not until the program or order of service says it does. Not two fast and one slow song. No, we stay in an atmosphere of praise until worship comes. And the our songs should be intimate, slow songs of love to God.

As we soak in His presence we will begin to feel the thick, heavy presence of the Lord. After the Glory comes down, the anointing, we need to wait. We need to wait for God to move. If we move out on our own we will be ahead of God and miss what He has for us. We need to minister out of God's Glory and not out of our own gift. When Holy Spirit moves, then we move with Him.

On Suffering

John 10:9-10
Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. (NLT)

Jesus did not come for us to suffer. He came for us to have abundant life, a rich and satisfying life. But that does not line up with satan's plan. No, he comes to steal and destroy.

Yet how often we hear about how we have to suffer for God. And so not true. It is one of the myths that keeps a child of God from receiving a healing touch. They honestly believe the lie of the enemy that tells they they are suffering for the glory of God.

John 9:3
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Some think this man was born blind for the express purpose of having Jesus lay hands on him and give him sight. Yet the works of God were not displayed until Jesus healed him. Our sickness does not glorify God; our healing does.

It is life before Christ that was filled with suffering. We were lost and blindly following the lead of satan. Sickness and despair were a normal part of our lives. We lived from paycheck to paycheck and from doctor to doctor. It was not an abundant life. It was living for the sake of living.

When we found Jesus, we found the only way out of the grip of satan. We found the truth that had been hidden from us, masked by a cunning enemy. All we have to do is put our trust in Him for our daily lives and Holy Spirit will keep us on the right path. And that is the only path that leads to an abundant life here on earth and a path that leads to an eternity in Heaven with Jesus.

Matthew 16:23 
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." (NIV)

When suffering tries to come upon us we need to do what Jesus did and command satan to get behind us. He has no authority in our lives and he has not power except for the power we give him. With Holy Spirit in us, we have complete power and authority over satan. It is time we used that power in our daily lives.

Using Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:7
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. (NLT)

It is so hard to separate spiritual gifts from our worldly thinking about the talents we were born with. Natural talent is not a spiritual gift. Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the church, the body of Christ.

We each have things we excel in and things we are not very good at. I am not an artsy person. You can put me in a room of paintings and I will not appreciate them like my wife, Dianne does. She sees the beauty in each and I just see pictures. Put her in a room of computers and she sees a bunch of stuff while I see the differences between them and sometimes understand what they are being used for.

My point is this. I do not have a natural talent to paint pictures. She does and if she practiced she might even be able to sell her work. On the other hand, although she has quite a bit of experiential knowledge of computers, when someone has a problem they do not call Dianne, they call me. Before retirement, I was able to make my living in the computer field because of my natural talent.

1 Corinthians 12:7-11
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice[b]; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. (NLT)

We all have been given spiritual gifts so we may serve others in the body of Christ. Perhaps it is the gift of healing, or the power to perform miracles, or perhaps the ability to prophesy. But how often are these gifts used as a means of income production? The Holy Spirit did not give a gift so we could make money off of it.

And it is not us who determine which gift to have. It is the one and only Spirit. And that gift may be given for all time, for a season, or even for a particular instance where it it needed. When we are laying hands on the sick we may get a word of knowledge about the person we are praying for. We do not move in words of knowledge all the time. But God knows when that person needs a boost of believe to be able to fully receive the healing to come. When they hear that word, they know without a doubt that only God could have known and therefore that God is present.

When the healing anointing is present during one of our meetings, many lay hands on the sick and see miracles occur. It is the anointing that heals, not us or the person praying. It is Jesus. When they leave the meeting, that anointing may linger for a little while, but next week they may not be seeing the same results. Holy Spirit gives the gift in His time for His purpose, not for our benefit.

When books and CDs and speaking engagements revolve around income production, we are off track and using the gifts for personal gain and not to serve the body. Don't get me wrong, the body is served whenever Holy Spirit is present. It is us that are misdirected and as the result of our actions we may cause others to take the same path.

2 Thessalonians 3:10
Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: "Those unwilling to work will not get to eat." (NLT)

Think about Paul. He lived off his tent making business and used his spiritual gifts to benefit the body of Christ. Shouldn't we to do the same?