The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Come on, put God first, seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added to you. It's up to you. You can make your life happy, healthy, wonderful. You can do it if you will do it.

Guest (Male): On today's Healing Word broadcast, Pastor Jack Morris is going to continue with a series of messages focused on having a thankful heart and the importance of Thanksgiving in the life of a believer. Let's go here today's message: The Power of Praise.

Pastor Jack Morris: We thank God for this season of the year of our national proclamation of Thanksgiving. We remember that the foundation of America was laid with prayer, with praise, and with thanksgiving. I think we need to remember that. We need to take that into consideration. This nation started with worship, and look what it has become.

Friend, when we take worship away and we stop worshipping and remembering that all of our gifts come from above, from the Lord, then we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing, and we're doing something very sad and dangerous. It was under the cruel persecution of King James Stuart that caused those first pilgrims to come to this country.

He wanted them to worship according to the ritual of the Church of England and a lot of smaller independent congregations. He wanted them to worship the way he wanted them to worship. He had a whole lot of other rules, and when they wouldn't follow the rules, the people of England and the Netherlands, he would be very cruel to them.

A band of 102 people... thank God there's always some people that are going to follow their heart, that are going to believe God, that are going to do what the Bible tells them to do. They're going to do the right thing. Thank God we're not going to just follow like sheep to the slaughter. 102 people got into a little small boat called the Mayflower.

The Mayflower had been in operation for several years transporting goods from England to France and up to the Netherlands. Somehow these 102 people got aboard that little boat and started across the Atlantic. That boat was either 100, perhaps 110 feet long. That is all. Some say it was 100 feet, some say it was 110.

With 102 pilgrims on board, there were 30 crew members. There couldn't have been very much privacy on that little boat. For three months they were aboard that boat without any heat. Some people will do great things because they love God and they're going to put God first and they're going to worship God. They're not going to wait until it's convenient to worship God.

Those people got into that little boat and they started across. Two of them died before they got here; 100 of them finally made it across. They wanted to go south. They wanted to land in the colonies in Virginia, but the fierce winds and the cold kept blowing them off course. They started out on September the 6th, 1620. They landed November the 21st, 1620.

You can get in a jet and in just a few hours you can be from here to England. But for three months, only because they wanted to worship God, they first spotted land on November the 9th. They kept trying to turn that boat and go south, but the winds kept blowing them in, and finally they docked in what is called now Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

That first winter was so severe. It's pretty cool up there right now in Massachusetts. But that first winter was so severe that 50 of them died. Half of them died, and half of them lived. The half that lived were still thankful that they came to this country to worship God from their heart. It was a heartfelt religion that they were interested in.

They didn't just go through the ritual and the ceremony. Their heart was toward God. They buried those 50 who died in unmarked graves for fear the Indians would dig them up to get to their clothes and any possessions. When the spring came, they planted their crops, and then when fall came, they harvested those crops and they gave thanks to God for what God had done.

Friend, look at the possessions that you and I have today. I'm so thankful. I don't begrudge any of us of anything. I'm thankful for everything we have. We have given to God. We have given to the lost. We have built hospitals and churches and orphanages all around the world. God has prospered America. Thank God we have been a generous people, and we are still a generous people.

This coming Thursday, our hearts are naturally drawn to those 50 pilgrims who left and came and laid a foundation of prayer and worship here. Now, just parenthetically, I want to put this in. The wind is not always at our back. Sometimes we're bucket head wind. Some of you today are facing situations that are not pleasant and are contrary to your comfort.

That does not mean that you're out of the will of God. Those 102 people that got board that little boat and came over had fierce winds. Did any of them say, though they may have thought it, "I wish I'd have stayed in England. We must be out of the will of God." Do you ever think that way when things start going wrong?

Trust the Lord. Believe God. If God has put something on your heart, follow it. Believe Him. Trust Him. Put that situation and those circumstances in His hands. He'll see you through. Everything is not going to be pleasant and beautiful all the time. We live in a world of humanity. Like one person said, "If it weren't for people, this would be a pleasant place to live."

It is people that cause all the problems. Aren't you glad you're not people? Thankfulness. The other day, Corinne and I were at a restaurant just this past week. I clumsily dropped my napkin on the floor. There was a young man at the table nearby. He jumped up real fast, went over and picked my napkin up and gave it to me.

I thought, "Wow, people like that are still around." Then his wife came in and his children and they reached across the table and took hands. People everywhere. But they bowed their heads and gave thanks to God for the meal that they were going to eat. Corinne and I always bow and pray in a restaurant, whether at home or in public.

When we finished eating, I got up and I walked by his table and I thanked him for his prayer, asking where he went to church. He asked me, "Where do you go to church?" I said, "I go to the Largo Community Church." I know he never heard of us, and I never heard of his church, and so we parted company.

It was so refreshing to know that there are people who love God more than anything else and they're not putting their religion out there on their sleeve, but they're just being true to the dictates of their heart and giving praise to God. An old farmer went into a country restaurant and he bowed his head and gave thanks for the food.

He was by himself. There were some young guys over there, and they started snickering at the old guy. A couple of the guys got up and walked by his table and they said, "Mister, do all your animals say grace before they eat?" The old gentleman looked up and smiled and he said, "No, the pigs don't. So you know what company you're in when you're ungrateful."

It all started with prayer, with praise, and with thanksgiving, this great land of ours. Look what God has done for us. I'm going to tell you about a man named John Henry Jowett. He was pastor in London, England, of the Westminster Chapel, and he wrote a note to a friend that has been preserved since 1920.

In that note, this pastor of a great church, a great theologian from whom many of us do our theological reading to this very day, wrote, "I do not experience unbroken health, unbroken joy." He said, "Sometimes I'm down so low." He felt like he had to tell somebody and he used the word depression.

He said, "I get so depressed and I get so down." Today we have a lot of medication that will help people with depression, but in the 20s there wasn't very much out there at all. In the note he said, "When I get so far down and I get so depressed and so sad and my joy has been interrupted, when I turn to give thanks to God for who God is and I begin to praise the Lord, I can break that spiraling down feeling and begin to turn things around."

Friend, you can do it. Give praise and give thanks to the Lord. Can everybody say, "Praise the Lord"? That's how this psalm begins, with those three words: "Praise the Lord." Over and over you see that in the Psalms. "Praise the Lord" simply means Hallelujah. When you say Hallelujah, you're saying "Praise the Lord."

So be good to yourself. Do something nice. In Psalm 22, verse 3, the psalmist says, "You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel." In another translation, it says, "God inhabiteth the praises of His people." This is what praise does: it puts a crown on God's head. When you give praise to the Lord, you are crowning the Lord.

It is at the point of praise that God enters in. That's the point of His entrance into your situation, into your problem, into your hurt, into your pain. What is the point of God's entrance? Praise and thanksgiving. Now, when you take a situation that is contrary and you talk about it and you talk about it, you are crowning that situation.

Let's say you're having a financial problem and you talk about it, you think about it, you ruminate on it, you discuss it, and it's just there in your mind all the time. The more you talk about it, the more you think about it. The more you think about it, the more you talk about it. You are crowning your lack.

You're putting a crown and you're saying, "This situation has power over me. This is controlling my thoughts. This is absorbing my energy. This has become my master and my king." You're putting a crown on whatever it is that's going wrong. But you begin to talk about Jesus, sing the praises of the Lord, read the praises of the Psalm, truly express it, you're putting a crown on His head.

Friend, who are you going to crown today? The negativism, the hurt that is going on in your life, in your family, with your children, the emotion that you feel within? Whatever you think about, whatever you talk about, you are crowning it and you are a slave. You have crowned it your king. It has now mastered you.

Week after week, month after month, you have put a crown on its head. Now, turn that thing around. Oh, in Jesus' name, turn it around. Give praise to the Lord. Begin to sing His praises. Talk about Jesus and how good He has been to you. Talk about what a nice house God has given you, what a good job God has given you, that God has given you the income to buy that nice house.

Now you're going to tithe your money to the Lord. You're going to praise God even with your income. Come on, put God first, seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added to you. It's up to you. You can make your life happy, healthy, wonderful. You can do it if you will do it.

I don't know why some people want to hold on to that grudge, put a crown on that grudge, celebrate that grudge, honor that grudge. I don't know why you're making yourself miserable every time it comes back. You can turn it around. Nobody but you can turn that thing around. You can do it right now.

You want to release those endorphins? You want to release those pain blockers? You can do it. Notice what it says. It begins this way: "Praise the Lord, how good it is to sing the praises of God." It's a good thing. You want to do a good thing for God? You want to do a good thing for your family? You want to do a good thing for yourself?

The psalm says, "How pleasant and fitting." Pleasantness has to do with disposition. There are so many unpleasant things that go on in this world. So many unpleasant things that we're feeling. Unpleasant things that have happened to us that we keep remembering and crowning and celebrating. Quit celebrating the unpleasant.

Praise brings an atmosphere of delight, of joy, and of pleasantness. Praise will expel unpleasantness. Friend, what verse have you been quoting? You know you can't quote the scripture and talk negative about somebody at the same time. Out of the same fountain, sweet water and bitter water doesn't come.

If bitter water is coming, that means you are a bitter man or a bitter woman. The sweet water, if it ever comes at all, it's nothing but a put-on hypocrisy. Bitterness and sweetness does not mix. But you can be a sweet person. You can be a lovely person. Some of you are going to do that. You can take this verse and use it.

It is pleasant and it is fitting. Have you ever gone to the dressmaker? You bought a new dress or you bought a new suit and you went in for a fitting. God wants to clothe you with a garment of salvation and a garment of praise. He wants to fit you up. He has something for you that will fit just you, just like this Psalm 147 fit this disgruntled lady.

As far as I know, that woman's never been disgruntled again. She found her secret in praising God, in thanking God, in opening up and receiving from God. Isn't it wonderful what God will do when we'll do what God is asking us to do? Notice verse 2. It says, "The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel."

This is a reference to the Jewish people who had been scattered away from the city of Jerusalem. Now God is bringing them all back together. It's good company to be with God's people. When He says He builds up Jerusalem, you and I as Christians can lay claim to that verse because you and I are the new Jerusalem.

We've been redeemed by Jesus. He's put our name in the book of life, making us the citizen of that world. You and I can lay claim to that verse. You may be on the outside. Your broken heart, your financial condition, your spiritual condition has put you on the outside of fellowship. You might be in church, but in your heart you're on the outside.

Because we are born-again Christians with our citizenship in heaven, we have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. We have peace through Him who is the Prince of Peace, Jesus. Everybody here today can have a Jerusalem experience. I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, "You can have a Jerusalem experience."

That's an experience of peace. All of the negative poison can be drained away and you can have this Jerusalem experience. Jerusalem to the child of God is not necessarily a geographical place; it's a place of the heart. It's the place where Jesus sits upon the throne. It's a place where you crown Jesus your King.

Verse 3 said, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." The Lord does it. Your problems and my problems, this problem that this dear man, pastor of Westminster Chapel, this problem that this disgruntled woman had... they come. We all experience them from time to time. The Lord brings about healing.

When that problem comes, it has a fact: it siphons off your joy. It just drains it out of you. Your energy goes. Your enthusiasm goes. You say, "Boy, I used to get so thrilled about going to church and thrilled about Sunday School. Now I just go through the motions." Friend, you're loved with an everlasting love.

God loves you and will love you to healing today if you'll recognize Him and praise Him. Turn your thoughts to Him. Talk about Jesus. Sing about Jesus. Worship Jesus. The healing will come.

Guest (Male): We hope that today's message, "The Power of Praise," has blessed you and strengthened your faith in God. But before we go, are you seeking a way to start your week filled with hope and inspiration? Every Monday morning, receive a fresh devotional delivered right to your inbox to uplift your spirit and encourage you throughout the week.

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Start each week with renewed purpose, feeling connected to God and ready for what lies ahead. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.