Loud Praise

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

LOUD PRAISE

Prov 27:14

14 If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.

NIV

The key to the truth in this saying is the part about early in the morning. But first we should note it may be alright to applaud someone for a job well done. But this loudly blessing of someone is not simply giving a little polite applause. This is giving praise with much extravagance. This is magnifying the merits of someone above measure and with hyperboles. It smacks of hypocrisy and may be on purpose in hopes of getting something from the one so loudly praised. The time of early on the morning for praises should be reserved for God. This is the time of day when we rise that we should be giving praise to God for first another day, but foremost for life itself and life in Christ. If we rose from our bed to loudly give praise to men, we are forgetting our Lord and his provisions for our life. If we give loud praise to a friend in hopes he will give us something then we have taken our eyes off God and have looked to man for our daily bread. Now perhaps we do not actually give all this obnoxious praise to a friend, but we can still be caught up in the trap of praising the things of man, rather than the things of God. That is to say we look to the world for our needs, we praise our work, our abilities, our education or knowledge as the source of our daily bread. That would indeed be a curse for cursed is the man who trusts in flesh.

Jer 17:5-6

5 This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. 6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

NIV

Giving praise to either a friend making him feel his abilities, his skills, his knowledge or education is special indeed might well influence him to put his trust in himself more than God which would put a curse on him. This would also apply to those who might praise us, or even if we think of rising early in the morning thinking we are filled with the abilities and knowledge to head off and make our way in the world to provide our daily bread. No, early in the morning we rise to praise our God, and praise him we will continue throughout the day for he is our portion, he is our provider, he is our healer, he is our salvation, he is our rock, he is our strong tower, he is our refuge in time of trouble, he is our banner, he is our righteousness, he is our shepherd, he is our peace, he is our sanctifier, He is the Lord God Almighty who forgives us, who gives us life, life eternal.  He is our daily bread. We will rise early in the morning and loudly praise his name.