The Sacrifice of Praise

This is the arena of overcoming by faith.
 We deny the present feeling. 
We deny the running conversation in our head. 
We acknowledge our present suffering by the endurance of faith and we give thanks. 

This is a true sacrifice of praise. 

The giddy world can rejoice when their circumstances are suitable - we give thanks in our pain and suffering - because we know by FAITH it is light and momentary. 

We also know by FAITH that patience must have her perfect work if we are to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 

Endurance without tribulation is meaningless. 

Shall we pray "Father make all my days a heaven on earth and I shall endure each one joyfully"? 

NO! In the hour of our fickle self depravity - 

we lift our eyes and fix them upon Him 

who is unseen and we consider 

Him who endured for the joy set before Him 

and we overcome by faith 

-the evidence of things not seen.

If we are to give thanks for the need of endurance, then we must give thanks for the MEANS of it as well. 

The MEANS of endurance is TRIBULATION - unless we want to endure only paradise. 

This is what the murmur of the heart is really saying when the grumbling escapes the unbridled lip. You were not enough God! 

Faith says, although I have been subject to frustration, like all of creation, and although I groan now longing to discard this weak flesh, I fix my eyes on the unseen - and suddenly my present affliction is but light and momentary. 

This enables me to rejoice in God, despite my present groaning. It is by THIS HOPE that we are saved - and hope that is seen in no hope - who hopes for what he already has.

When I FEEL the frustration - when I groan within myself - there is a helper in my weakness - the deposit that I received - the very life of God - His Spirit - He is interceding in me - drawing me to the Father - teaching me to walk by faith. It is the way we are to be saved - until the day when these weak bodies are finally put off. Ours is a temporary suffering for an eternal joy. The world's is a temporary happiness for an eternal suffering. ~Alan


"We are ready to praise when all shines fair.  But when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, and with the shadow of death approaching, --then (it is harder) to praise God; then to say, This fear, loneliness, affliction, pain, and trembling awe are as sure token of love, as life, health, joy, and the gifts of home.  "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;" on either side it is He, and all is love alike; 'blessed be the name of the Lord;'--this is the true sacrifice of praise.  What can come amiss to a soul which is so in accord with God?  What can make so much as one jarring tone in all its harmony?  In all the changes of this fitful life, it ever dwells in praise."  ~H.E.Manning