The Origin and Basis of Praise

We have already spoken of how praise flows out of our prayer time with God as we meditate on the Word. Now here is how praise actually begins. As we are having our time of meditation, the Holy Spirit works on our mind and heart and will. He helps us to see in our mind many wonderful things about God. He helps us feel uplifted, and gives us joy. Then He energizes our will, as He puts the idea in our mind and heart to sing and clap and raise our hands toward heaven.

I like what Jennings has said: “The origin of praise is the leaping of the Spirit within us, the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon us.4 This “leaping of the Spirit” in us, I would say, has its basis in what God did for us in the life, death and resurrection of His Son, because had He not lived, died and rose, we would therefore have no reason to rejoice at all. Moreover, the Spirit rejoices in us, and makes us rejoice because of our new life in Christ.

Jennings wrote, “Praise…is grounded in the sense of joy and gratitude that corresponds to the experience of more than enough. But this is not the only basis for praise… Praise has its basis in God’s action and presence… In praise we rejoice that God has come to us.”5

And we know that “God’s action” and the way God “has come to us,” is in His Son and through His Spirit. When we receive His Son and when we pray to be filled with His Spirit, God’s Spirit then rushes toward us and is poured out upon us. And His Spirit leaps within us. From then on, we feel the heart of God and we share both the joys and the sorrows of God. When He sighs and grieves, we also sigh and grieve within our spirit—which, in a sense, is the very heart of prayer. And when He is glad and joyful we are glad and joyful—that, in a sense, is praise.

Source: The Basics of Prayer