Leap year day comes every four years giving us an extra day in the year. There are never enough opportunities to praise Our Lord, and on this day we are given twenty-four more hours to use in praise. In praising God, we become overwhelmed by joy as God expresses to us His pleasure in our obedience. Thank the King of kings for creating you, praying that He would fill you to overflowing with His love to saturate your spirit.
If that is not enough, praise Him because He already owned us as His creation. He paid an exorbitant price for us by redeeming us with the blood of His Son. Even though He owned us and bought us, in order to place an even higher claim on us, he exhibited His endless and unfailing love. He adopted us and promised us a rich inheritance! He does all these things and so much more every day. How can it not bring praise to our lips as we realize the pure love, joy, peace and freedom that these gifts bring? We can only accept them by thanking Him for them.
Have you ever woken and just stood beside the window, looked out and up, and gave praise to the Lord? Perhaps on a warm morning you even carried your breakfast out to the porch and read your Bible, communicating with your Heavenly Father, the One who created you. Somedays you might see a beautiful sunrise and hear the birds lift their voices to the Creator. The Scripture says, “Let all creation praise the Lord.”
I sing an old hymn by the title of “Praise the Savior”. Perhaps you could think about some of the words of Thomas Kelly as he expresses himself in praise. We can’t possibly tell just how much we owe Him for all He does and gives. He watches over us. His eyes never leave us for we are His treasure. We should give Him our praise, thanking Him for designing us just the way we are.
Mr. Kelly also wrote in verse two that Jesus is the Name that charms us, for He fits and arms us for the conflicts we face daily. God never changes. Nothing moves us and nothing can harm us while we trust in Him! There is so much in these words of a hymn writer whose heart was filled with praise. God is faithful and there is no force nor deceit that can ever sever our relationship with Him. His love for us is deep!
Next, the author writes, “Keep us, Lord, O keep us closely to Him. Keep us believing!” God enables us to believe through each day of our lives until we reach Heaven, where we will receive so many more joys.
Finally, in the fifth stanza of this little hymn he writes that when all this has taken place we shall be where we would be, and we shall be what we should be, because things that are not now nor could be, soon shall be our own.
This is our confident expectation as we approach Easter time. We should daily praise God for giving us His Son and for forgiving us of all sin! Praise is God’s way of opening us up to sharing His joy. The Psalmist says in Psalm 145, “I will praise you every day”! Feel blessed that you have been given this extra day to praise the Lord!
Praising the Lord, Sharon
(You can listen to Thomas Kelly’s hymn on YouTube.)