So many of us struggle to understand the vital link between praise and prayer. Prayer is more than asking things from God. It is an exercise in the worship of God to extol His Name, and to offer thanks for all His benefits. The child of God is assured that he is approaching a throne of grace in prayer, not a throne of judgment (Heb. 4:16). The Christian enters the divine presence in the name of Christ (John 14:14, 16:23). If he prays under the control of the Holy Spirit, he will offer petitions within the will of his Heavenly Father (Romans 8:26, 27). Prayer should be made in faith and with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2). The prayer that Christ taught His disciples, known as the Lord’s Prayer, is a model to guide His followers concerning proper principles and goals of prayer (Matt. 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4).¹ In this week’s Light On Life, we discuss a potent aid to your spiritual development. It’s a power protein shake packed with nutrients to help you grow. How Praise Powers You to Remarkable God-Style Growth, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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#028: How to Develop Spiritually [Podcast]

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Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put it into operation.
This weeks call is:

Learn to balance off your prayer requests with offerings of praise, thanking God, as an act of faith, for the thing you are asking for.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Share one story from your life where praise powered you to God-styled growth. Share your experience in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject of Praise and Worship by clicking on the links above.

• #S6-048: Is Praise and Worship the Pillars of Your House [Encore Podcast]
• What’s Praise and Worship in Heaven Like?
• #S7-048: Why Thanking God Always Is the Right Way
• #S6-019: Worshiping God: Why the Hour Is Here
• #S6-020: More on Praising God: Why the Hour is Here
• Why We Must Not Confuse New Testament Worship with the Old
• How To Avoid One Of The Biggest Worship Mistakes Ever
• What is The Costly Foundation of Worship?
• Are You Making These Worship Mistakes?
• The Second Commandment: The Exclusive Necessity to Worship God

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic, you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com.

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Podcast Notes

Review on God-Style Increase

• In last week’s podcast, How Right Environments Lead to God-Style Increase, we mentioned that increase takes place when optimal conditions are met.
• Pristine environments are harbingers of expansion.
• We talked about good ground, water, and light symbolically in relation to the seed of God’s Word.
• All of these needful nutrients nudge us over into overflow.
• The Word of God belongs in your spirit, not on thin pages of India paper.
• Your spirit is the soil for God’s Word — it’s the right environment — God’s Word blossoms best in you.
• It leads to prime-time development.

1 Peter 2:2 (ESV) — 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

• To facilitate growth, milk must be in the baby, not in the bottle.
• Containers are never the right environment for growth.
• If you want to see increasing growth in your life, get God’s Word out of the book and into your heart.
• Then, in that same podcast, we talked about hunger and God-style increase.
• That to realize God-style increase, you must incorporate correct cravings.
• As Matthew 5:6 states:

Matthew 5:6 (ESV) — 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

• Correct cravings dovetail into a walk that is, in God, growing and vibrant.
• But, there are other factors that lead to healthy spiritual growth.
• And, we are going to talk about one of them in today’s ‘Light On Life,’ but before we do, here is a healthy growth tip.

A Healthy Growth Tip

• These are factors that you have to experience and walk in — Bible principles you have to learn for yourself.
• And, with that thought, here is the Quote of the Day.

You cannot fight your battles in another person’s armor.²

• David alluded to that when he refused to put on Saul’s amour to fight Goliath.

1 Samuel 17:38–40 (ESV) — 38 Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, 39 and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” So David put them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.

• The Hebrew word ‘tested’ here means putting someone to the test or conducting a test to give experience or to train.³
• The point here is we can talk about factors that lead to growth, but you have to put them to the test.
• You have to get the experience; you have to learn to fight in your armor, not someone else’s.

Growth Through Praise: Factors that Lead to

• Worship brings God tangibly on the scene.
• It’s a forerunner of manifestation.
• Tangibly is a keyword here.
• There is one fact about the Lord that is very obvious to all budding theologians – God is always present, but He is not always manifest.
• Worship causes an escalation of manifestation.
• It brings an intensification of knowing that He is there.
• You know God likes to hang out where He is welcome.

Growth Through Praise: God is Enthroned

• Listen to this in the twenty-second Psalm.

Psalm 22:3 (ESV) — 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

• The word ‘enthroned’ in Hebrew means to inhabit or live.
• God’s Presence abounds in an atmosphere of praise.

James 4:8 (ESV) — 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

• And when He comes, He never comes empty-handed.
• Everything good, right, and perfect happens when God draws near.
• An atmosphere of worship is just one more right environment that catapults you to huge growth.

Psalm 67:5–7 (ESV) — 5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! 6 The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!

Growth Through Praise: Highest Type of Prayer

• Praise and worship is the highest kind of prayer.
• Several years ago, a well-known minister was driving down the road just minding their own business. The Spirit of God came upon him. This is what happened.

He comes upon me in the most unusual places, this minister said. Then, He said to me, “Son the church is sadly lacking.” I said, what do you mean, ‘sadly lacking’?” “Well,” He said, “My children basically love me, but they live in poverty and sickness and defeat. They don’t live in heaven’s blessings because they don’t worship me enough.” ……“If you teach my people to worship me more, I’ll do great and mighty things for them.”⁴

• I’m talking about factors that lead to huge growth in God; worshiping at the Throne is one of them.

Growth Through Praise: Working for God

Acts 13:1–2 (ESV) — 1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

• ‘As they worshiped the Lord,’ the ESV says.
• The KJV has it as they ministered to the Lord.
• Same difference.
• As they worshiped, something wonderful happened.
• God said some things — the same God that said some things in Genesis one when He created the planets.
• What He said resulted in an increase in a huge step forward in their ministry.
• What did that step forward look like tangibly?
• You see it as Paul and company set sail for Cyprus.

Acts 13:4–6 (ESV) — 4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus.

Growth Through Praise: Government Officials and Sorcerers

• In Cyprus, they meet a Roman proconsul.
• A proconsul is a political position, kind of like a United States Governor.
• This proconsul’s name was Sergius Paulus.
• Sergius had, in his company, on his staff maybe, in his entourage; however you want to say it, a Jewish false-prophet sorcerer type person named Bar-Jesus.
• Now, I am taking the time to explain some of this because of the unfamiliar terms and names.
• I mean, who has a name like Bar-Jesus today.
• We would shorten it up to BJ.
• We don’t know much about BJ, only that he was a magician — not a ‘pull a rabbit out of the hat’ kind of magician — but a sorcerer.
• Bar-Jesus was also known as Elymas.
• Elymas is the Greek form of an Arabic word that means sorcerer, magician, or fortune-teller.
• A sorcerer is someone who uses the power of evil spirits to do things. The magician’s work would involve healing and looking for signs by using formulas, incantations, amulets, and other forms of inducing discernment. He probably offered Paulus his services to divine future events for him.⁵
• So, the first thing we know about BJ is that he was a sorcerer.
• The next thing the scripture tells us about BJ is that he was a false Jewish prophet.
• False prophets are, well, false, not real.
• What they say will come to pass does not.
• Who they purpose themselves to be, they are not — they are false — they are a lie.
• Sorcerers live a lie, talk a lie — they are liars.
• So, BJ was a liar.
• The third fact we have from the record of God’s Word was not a ‘Jesus fan.’

Acts 13:8–12 (ESV) — 8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

• He sought to turn the Sergius Paulus, let’s just call him Sergei for short, away from the faith — away from the gospel that declares Jesus as Savior and Lord.
• Well, the Spirit of God went into action at this point.
• Paul is trying to lead Sergei to Jesus, and this lying sorcerer and opposer of Jesus are trying to stop him.

Growth Through Praise: God’s Power on Display

Acts 13:9–12 (ESV) — 9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

• ‘Son of the devil’ — that tells the story, doesn’t it?
• ‘You enemy of all righteousness’ – it’s getting worse, isn’t it?
• ‘Full of all villainy and deceit’ adds to the pile.
• ‘Making crooked the straight paths of the Lord’ – these are Holy Spirit-inspired words coming out of the mouth of Paul.
• The Lord has cataloged this man’s current state.
• Take the time to digest these words — all of these words together paint a picture of a very wicked man in the sight of God.
• The hand of the Lord comes upon this man, and he becomes blind.
• It shocked the proconsul — it shocked Sergei.
• The spellbinder becomes spellbound.⁶

Growth Through Praise: God’s Astonishing Ability

• The word in Greek is ‘astonished.’
• The Greek word ‘astonished’ used here means to be utterly amazed or to become astounded to such a degree as to nearly lose one’s mental composure.
• Modern vernacular? God blew Sergei’s mind right out of the water.
• So, what we have here is a tremendous display of God’s miraculous power right on the heels of a time of worship and consecration to obey the will of God.
• Before this time of worship and laying before God, Paul did not have a manifestation like this.
• So can you see how worship was a factor in Paul’s growth in ministry?
• When there is worship – there comes increase – good things begin to happen — people get delivered, God speaks — stuff happens, God encourages, His presence comes in to strengthen us.
• If you want the Spirit of Increase to manifest, if you want what is supposed to increase to do so properly, then make praise and worship your WAY OF LIFE.

Growth Through Praise: Are You Stuck?

• Many people are doing a good job praying, but are you doing the same good job worshiping?
• Some are stuck in a loop of praying and praying and yet experience no growth.
• Are you praying, or are you pleading in unbelief?
• Add to your faith, build on your prayer foundation with the brick of praise.

Philippians 4:6 (ESV) — 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

• Did you hear that? — prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.
• If it’s to increase, your prayer needs to be in an environment of faith, and it has to have a catalytic component – and praise is that agent that accelerates growth.
• Again so many are out of balance when it comes to our prayer life.

Growth Through Praise: Staying in Balance

• If we were to use the image of a balance type scale, if you were to put on one side of the scale the amount of prayer that you’ve prayed, and then on the other side, place the amount of praise that you have offered to God for the thing you prayed about, would the scale balance?
• It should, you know.
• When your praises balance your praying, you’ll experience increase.
• There is another incident recorded in the Old Testament that may help us to see how growth comes.

Growing by Doing the Simple Things

• It’s the story of a Syrian general named Naaman.
• Naaman was not a well man — he was a leper.
• Listen as this story develops.

2 Kings 5:2 (ESV) — 2 Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife.

Growth Through Praise: A Teenager Testifies

• This girl from the land of Israel was a little girl.
• Little girl means young girl — the word ‘little’ references age, not height.
• This little girl speaks up for her great God with these words.

2 Kings 5:3 (ESV) — 3 She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

• So, here is a young person, probably less than 15 years of age, testifying about the power of God to heal.
• So, the King of Syria sends Naaman to see Elisha, the prophet of God.

2 Kings 5:9–14 (ESV) — 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.

• Naaman was the general of the King of Syria’s army — an important man, a notable man, a high-ranking dignitary.
• But this high man was a low man because his life was plagued with a highly contagious skin disease.
• So, he thought that he would receive an answer the way he was used to receiving things like a man of his stature.
• Naaman was expecting to receive in a more regal fashion.
• Elisha told him to go and dip in the muddy Jordan river not one time but seven times.
• He got mad about it.
• Naaman got nationalistic about it.
• He thought Syrian rivers were better; they were cleaner than the muddy Jordan.
• He thought his healing should happen some other way.
• His servants interjected — thank God for good help.
• This is what they said to the general.

Growth Through Praise: It’s Not Hard

2 Kings 5:13–14 (ESV) – 13 But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

• What’s the point here?
• The point is that praise is not a hard thing to do.
• If God asked you to do a hard thing that you might increase, would you do it?
• How much more such a simple thing as saying ‘Thank you, Jesus, thank you Lord for hearing me — thank you Lord for helping me — thank you for healing me?’
• Can you handle the simple?
• Will you commit to doing the thing that’s easy but perfectly in line with God’s Word?

Growth: Praise an Always Affair

Ephesians 5:20 (ESV) — 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

• Always and everything means a continual flow.
• It means there must be an intersection between growing and praising.
• Jesus must be and ought to be properly worshiped in your house.
• Praising Him is part of loving Him.
• There is such a danger of the common becoming mundane.
• We get up; we go to work; we feed the capitalism machine; we punch the clock; we do the thing that we do.
• Praise keeps you in vital contact with the freshness of His Presence.
• How easy for ‘feelings’ to funnel our life.
• We don’t feel thankful.
• Health and provision we enjoy, but we take it for granted.
• We have families and people who love us, but we don’t value them as we should.
• The term spiritual funk.
• What about the word plateau?
• You know, in the dieting world, the term plateau reigns.
• There comes the point of determining that we have had enough, and we say it’s time to lose this excess baggage that binds our waist.
• We do X, Y, and Z with religious-like zeal, and we progress.
• But, there comes the point where we plateau.
• The scale gets stuck on a number. We change the batteries on the scale because surely there must be something wrong with the scale — and not our approach.
• What’s happening here in the world of the waistline?
• You’ve plateaued.
• One website offers these tips to the dieter who gains have died.
• Reassess your habits.
• Cut more calories.
• Rev up your workout.
• Pack more activity into your day.⁷
• Bring these four steps over into the area of growing spiritually.

Growth Through Praise: Dealing with Plateaus

• Reassess your habits.
• This involves examine yourself 1 Corinthians 13:4 style.
• Reassess is a great word.
• Throw in re-evaluation for more clarity.
• Spirit life is all about making adjustments.
• Know where you are — know where you are going.
• With that ‘cut out more calories.’
• To break a plateau, maybe we should consider laying aside a few time-consuming things for a short time to focus our hearts on the Lord.
• The last two ‘rev up your workout’ and ‘pack more into your day’ may mean that to shake ourself self loose, we need to spend more concentrated time reading God’s Word, talking, and praising Him.
• More leads to manna.
• It can help break you free from lethargic living.
• The power of praise can power you to God-style increase.
• You guys have a great God week, and we will see you next time for another edition of Light On Life.

One Necessary Component You Need for Spiritual Growth in God

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References: