2 Chronicles 20:22 Praise
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living. True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth

By Marni Montanez

2 Chronicles 20:22 New King James Version

22. Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.

Jehoshaphat, king of Judah and the people of Judah received devastating news that three different armies were coming to destroy their kingdom, which caused great fear among them.  But Jehoshaphat chose to shatter that fear when He instructed all the Israelites to get on their faces to seek the wisdom of the Lord. , God told them to go out and face the armies and they obeyed. 

First the musicians went out, praising the Lord and giving Him glory. As they did this they changed the emotional and spiritual atmosphere and the Kingdom of God came to earth and His presence manifested. The people chose to acknowledge God as their deliverer and trust Him to deliver them from the enemy.

God protected His people and destroyed their enemies by doing the impossible.  As the Israelite musicians praised God, He sent His holy angels to ambush the enemy. By the time the Israelites approached the hill and looked over, they saw a mass grave.

Because of God’s intervention, the army turned on itself and they destroyed each other. It is so easy for us to be taken off guard with sudden bad news. Many times our first reaction to it is fear and we allow ourselves to keep sliding down the slope of this fear when we believe the problem instead of God.  We need to see God as bigger than the problem.

God is asking us to use the  same principle of worship the Israelites used to change our atmosphere and invite the presence and power of God into our situations. By worshipping the Lord we are putting Him in a place of reverence. It is in this atmosphere we let go of our fears and agendas and take up a posture of confidence and peace.

By standing in a place of worship, we are not striving, but we’re relying on God for the outcome to our situation.   We must worship with all our hearts; full of sincerity as we hope in God.

John 4:24 (NIV)   

24. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Surrendering ourselves in worship is about having our full attention on God and Him alone.  We must abandon ourselves to the quest of knowing Him personally; praising Him because He is God.  When we do this, we move out of His way and allow Him access to all our troubles and all our fears so that He can change the dynamics and rescue us from them all.   

Challenge:   In your difficult times worship God with song.  Sing praises to Him because He is God. Look at how the psalmist praised God, with a sincere and abandoned heart.

God bless

Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.