Everybody Sing Praise

I know a lady who has been one of the most effective soul winners I have ever met.  Her secret isn’t some clever or well practiced “sales” pitch for Jesus.  She hasn’t developed a technique that she can package and sell.  She uses the technique of those who lived in the first century of the church and saw the world turned “upside down” by the Gospel.  That was the view, anyway, of the heathen world as recorded in Acts 17.  What really happened was that God, through the ministry of the Church, was righting the sinking ship of mankind. 

So, what was their methodology?  What is this lady’s methodology?  It is the simple way of praise.  When you meet her and ask how things are going, she always answers, “I’m just praising the Lord.”  Now there is an opening.  Nobody else seems to be praising the Lord.  Everyone else is grousing or crying or listening to too much negative talk radio.  She, on the other hand, is praising the Lord. 

There are two reactions.  One is negative.  Let me get out of here; this lady is crazy.  The other is quite the opposite.  Why, people ask her, are you praising the Lord?  Now think about this for a moment, what would your answer be?  She will often ask them if they have a minute to hear the answer.  If they do she will tell them then.  If they don’t and are willing to hear the full explanation, she will set up an appointment to meet them in their home or over coffee.  Then what would you tell them?  She tells them the Gospel.  She tells them that Jesus Christ has died and her sins are forgiven.  She tells them that since her sins are forgiven she has the best friend in the whole world who is with her each day.  She tells them that she has the certainty of an eternal home in heaven and that is why, no matter what life is like on earth, she is praising the Lord. 

All that blessing in her life comes from one phrase, “I’m just praising the Lord.”  Perhaps if more Christians were praising the Lord instead of crying in their beer or vilifying their opponents, more of the Gospel message would be heard and believed.  John Peterson wrote a simple praise chorus that calls upon us to live and give this clear testimony of praise, “Everybody Sing Praise to the Lord!”

Everybody sing praise to the Lord, everybody sing praise to the Lord,

Everybody sing praise to the Lord, for He is so wonderful!

  The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

 

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