PRAISE

Share with you these pretty cool quotations to stir your heart and mind on PRAISE (extracted from Christianity Today, Aug2008 issue). May they spur you to praise, worship & adore the Creator God of heavens & earth, the Great I AM!

• From Augustine, Confessions
  "Man is one of your creatures, Lord & his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you 'thwart the proud'. But still, since he is part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself & our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
  
  
• From David F. Ford & Daniel W. Hardy, Living in Praise: Worshipping & Knowing God
  "Faith in God is an experience that lives & grows by praise. There is continual spiral reinforcement: praising God helps us to appreciate what one is praising God for."
  
  
• From Thomas Merton, Praying the Psalms
  "If we have no real interest in praising him, it shows that we have never realised who he is. For when one becomes conscious of who God really is & when one realises that he who is almighty, & infinitely holy, has 'done great things to us', the only possible reaction is the cry of half-articulate exultation that bursts from the depths of our being in amazement at the tremendous, inexplicable goodness of God to men."
  
  
• From Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer
  "When life is seen as the gift of God, praise & thanksgiving are inevitable..A constant attitude of gratitude is life-giving. In the face of such amazing grace & generosity, the only possible response must become that of continuing & ever-deepening praise."