God perfected praise through children? That’s high praise coming from Jesus.

Perfect? Without error. Without flaw. No improvement can be made, consider that… Perfect.

I don’t know about you, but I need to practice more at even giving God praise, let alone perfecting it.

Now, perhaps you are considering you more or less do well enough in this area of your relationship with God. You do a morning prayer thanking Him for a good night’s sleep, you do a prayers thanking Him for all three, breakfast, lunch and dinner, and you pray before sleep to thank Him for keeping you safe throughout the day.

That’s not praise – that’s thanks. There is a difference.

Let’s keep this in the context of children vs adults and praise. Consider giving a gift to an adult, more than likely they will say “Thank you!” and mean it I might add. Now compare giving a gift to a very young child – give them a bottle of bubbles and tell them to go play with them. Ironically, they may not actually stop to say “Thank you.”, but you do get your praise, as they tear off into the field scrambling to open the bottle of bubbles, keening with a glee that cannot be contained.

Praise is uncontainable joy bursting out from the soul.

That is a deeper issue than at first it may seem. “Praise” is not something that is just simply given. It is something you must have an open and active enough heart to experience, to have, in order to offer up and out.

I very often thank God for very many things, but, being more honest with myself, I seldom at all feel a great joy, a saturating happiness, a powerful exultation that compels me to pour my whole self into expressing it.

Praise consumes the whole of our self in being expressed.

What, exactly is being expressed? I would say another difference between “Thanks” and “Praise”, is that thanks is mostly focused on what you are thankful for. If someone gives you a really good cookie, and you thank them, the focus is the cookie. “Thanks for the cookie!” It makes sense, the cookie is what you received, but then the focus is really the cookie, not so much, or as much, the giver.

Praise would be entirely focused on the giver. They are so wonderful for giving it! They are so awesome for making it! They are so incredible for picking you to give it to! They are fantastic for knowing how to make it!

Praise is wholly dedicated to the holding up and adulation of the person.

We do see a lot of praise in our culture. Can you guess where?

Sports.

When a star player pulls of a star move to win a game, that person is praised.

They are praised by fans. They are praised by teammates. They are praised by their coach. They are praised by sports announcers. They are praised by news casters. They are praised by blog writers.

They all get so wrapped up and taken in by the win the star player has delivered.

That only they, with their master skills and talents could have ever delivered.

If that is how we react to a human winning a human game, that really doesn’t effect that much.

How much more should our praise me multiplied for Jesus, who won the ultimate victory for us?

Defeated death.

Rose from the dead.

Won for us the salvation of our souls.

I don’t know about you, but I need to practice more at even giving God praise, let alone perfecting it.

Because what Jesus did, what only Jesus could do – was incalculably, over-awesomely, miraculous.

“Amen! Praise and blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever! Amen!” – Revelation 7:12