Sue’s Views
12 Steps to a Good Year but Derek Prince
Step 12: Let Us Offer Up A Sacrifice Of Praise
“Through Him [Jesus] then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.” (Hebrews 13:15 NASB)
This final step of offering up a sacrifice of praise to God is related in a direct and practical way with the two previous steps, which were, “Let us show gratitude” and “Let us go out to Him outside the gate.” You see, gratitude naturally leads to praise. There are so many passages in the Bible where it relates thanksgiving with praise. One of the most beautiful is Psalm 100:4:
“[We] enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.” (NKJV)
The step just before this one, “Let us go out to Him outside the camp,” means for us to be identified with the cross of Jesus. To follow Jesus, we must accept the reproach of His cross. This brings us release from the two slaveries of pleasing self and pleasing the world.
This step is directly related to offering the sacrifice of praise. You might not see it at first, but there are two hindrances to spontaneous, free flowing praise in our lives. They are: love of self and love of the world. As long as our affections are centered in ourselves or in the world, we are not really free to praise God. But the cross removes these two hindrances and sets us free to praise God.
Set free in this way, we are no longer affected by what happens to us. We are not affected by our moods, by our problems, by apparent adversity. We are no longer affected by what goes on in the world around us. You know, sometimes when we listen to the news, we think, “Well, the situation’s pretty bad—problems, disasters, crime, immorality…” But you see, we are not living in this world. The world doesn’t dominate us. It doesn’t dominate our thinking. We are in the world but not of the world.
When we are released from that slavery to the world—when the world doesn’t control our thinking and our motivation, when we have been liberated by the cross in that inner attitude toward the world—then there is nothing left to hinder our praise. We don’t praise God just when things are going right in the world. We don’t praise God just when things are going right with ourselves. Rather, we praise God because He is worthy to be praised. Our liberated spirit isn’t entangled with self-love and the love of the world.
