Stand Up and Praise!

 

“Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.”

—Nehemiah 9:5

The New International Version of the Bible lists 27 occurrences for the words “stand up.” It is amazing how many times those words appear as a call to action.

In the case of today’s Scripture passage, the call comes from the Levites who have appeared before the Israelites that have begun to rebuild the wall of fallen Jerusalem. Their leader, Nehemiah, has called for the people to gather for a time of confession of sin and the reading from the scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Nehemiah 9 captures this marvelous time of spiritual revival. And, it is important to note that the first order of business came from the words of the priestly tribe of Levi when they declared, as recorded in Nehemiah 9:5:

“Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.”

Whenever we approach God, we should begin with praise for who He is. After all, Jesus taught us to pray by beginning with the words: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed (or worthy of praise) is Thy name.”

As we begin a new day, let’s start this day by worshipping God for who He is. Let’s tell Him how magnificent He is and why we love Him so very much. Knowing that He loves us even more than we have the capacity to love Him back, we can certainly benefit from verbally acknowledging the reality of how truly glorious He is.

 

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