What Does God Think of Us?

I’ve been reading “I Hear His Whisper,” a devotional book written as if from God’s point of view. Today it encouraged gratefulness because I’m “too lovely to complain.”

I had just asked the Lord how I could glorify him. This I sensed to be the answer. “Be grateful, because you’re “too lovely to complain.” What a sweet and tender Father God we have!

Gratefulness, (thanking God) is a way of praising God.

In the 1970’s, Merlin Carothers wrote a series of books about praising God. He claimed (using much scripture) there is power in praising God. In his book, Victory On Praise Mountain, he said “Our Christian walk is not going to be just joy and fellowship. If it is to be at all effective for the Lord, then Satan is going to be active. We will have to engage in spiritual warfare, just as serious Christians always have.” (p. 24).

When one becomes a Christian, he/she joins God’s army to fight against Satan’s army. This is why the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 6:10-13, said: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand  against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Therefore, Paul says, we are to “take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Put on the breastplate of righteousness, the girdle of truth, the shoes of the equipment of the gospel of peace, the helmet of salvation, and take up the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.”

So that is how we prepare to fight. Praising God is one of the ways we fight the enemy, the devil. If we believe the scriptures that say “In everything God works for good for those who love God” and “God is a shield for those who trust in Him,” then we can praise and trust him every day, no matter the circumstances.

By praising God, we show that we trust Him to do what is best, just as a little child trusts his loving Father to take care of him.

Just as Paul and Silas praised God in the prison (see Acts 16), we should “praise God anyway.” And when we do, God thinks we are lovely.