"Hem your blessings with praise lest they unravel." - Source unknown
"Gratitude is the interest we owe God for the life He has loaned us." - Source unknown
"We must, during all our labour and in all else we do, even in our reading and writing, holy though both may be --I say more, during our formal devotions and spoken prayers --pause for some short moment, as often indeed as we can, to worship God in the depth of our heart, to savour him, though it be but in passing, and as it were by stealth. Since you are not unaware that God is present before you whatever you are doing, that He is at the depth and centre of your soul, why not then pause from time to time at least from that which occupies you outwardly, even from your spoken prayers, to worship him inwardly, to praise him, petition him, to offer him your heart and thank him? What can God have that gives him greater satisfaction than that a thousand times a day all his creatures should thus pause to withdraw and worship him in the heart." - Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God (tr. E. M. Blaiklock)
"Authentic praise of God acknowledges what is true about God: it responds to qualities that are 'there' and not simply 'there for me'... In other words, God is to be praised because God is God, because of what God is and does, quite apart from what God is and does for me. Anyone can, and should, praise God when the Lord blesses one and keeps one...Gratitude is indeed often expressed as praise, and rightly. But that does not make praise and gratitude identical. Or does God cease to be praiseworthy when gratitude has fled because the Lord seems to withhold blessings, when the divine face appears to be set against us, and when agony drives out peace?" - Leander E. Keck in the Christian Century (Dec. 16,1992)
"Has praise become the new darling of the church -- something to busy ourselves with while skirting other more demanding calls of God? Is it now 'praise' instead of 'love' that covers over a multitude of sins? Is it now faith, hope, and love that remain, but the greatest of these is praise? It does appear sometimes that no matter what we are doing wrong, praise will somehow make it right... Praise is important, but not something to make such a big deal about when everything else God created is already engaged in the moment by moment expression of this...as a natural course of events... When we admonish people to praise, don't tell them what they'll get out of it, or what God will get out of it. Tell them to praise Him simply because it is right and reasonable to do so. To attach anything more to this is to presume undue importance upon ourselves." - John Fischer in Contemporary Christian Music (Dec. 1994)
