Praise God For He Alone Is Exalted

Acts 17:15,22-18:1
John 16:12-15

Praise is a form of prayer that turns our heart into worshipping God and only Him alone. It shows the beauty and importance of prayer that overflows within and through all creation. When we praise God we do not acknowledge Him only because He created us and saved us but because of who He is. The psalmist says; let them praise His name for He alone is exalted. Whenever we sing a song of praise we acknowledge God as the fullness of being and every perfection. All creatures receive what they have and what they are from God.

In today’s first reading, Paul proclaims the Christian message to the city of Athens. For the God who made the world and ‘all that is in it’…” Paul reminds us that everything that exists is a gift of God’s love, an expression of God’s goodness and wonderful creativity. Nothing exists, no person, no species, and nothing of the natural world, that did not come from God. All things receive their being and life from God not just once but continually, which is why apart from God nothing can live.

“They were to seek God…though he is not really far from any one of us.” The God who absolutely transcends us is also astonishingly close at hand, continuously in reach, in those with whom we live, in strangers passing by, in the face of a delighted child or the person grieving a loss, in moments of joyful celebration as well as moments of silence. Every moment of every day God is near, surrounding us, upholding us, accepting and accompanying us. Even if we tried, we couldn’t get away from God because wherever we would go, God would already be there waiting for us.

“’In him we live and move and have our being’….” All things are in God and God is in all things. What a difference it would make if we acquired the moral and spiritual vision by which we saw God in every human being, in every creature, and the whole created world. We would love our neighbors eagerly and joyfully. We would treat every creature with respect and would never stop giving thanks for the gift of God’s creation. Peace, justice, and love would abound

Fr Joseph Osho