Magnify

MAGNIFY

Psalm 34:3

There are fads in religion just like in every other aspect of life.  A few years ago, the Prayer of Jabez was sweeping the nation, largely due to the promise that reciting and or believing it would enlarge the believer’s territory.   Here is the straight truth, religion is not about enlarging my territory but about enlarging the territory of God.  What am I doing to give God more presence, more power more influence more praise in my life.  That is the crux of the matter.  IT is about magnifying God.

Today we are looking at the word, Magnify.  What does it mean to magnify?

To make larger

To declare great

To get glory and praise

To esteem highly, extol, laud

A Christian ought to, must do this.

How can I declare God to be great?

I.              One way to magnify God is to give God thanks.                  Psalm 69.30

IS there something on your life for which you need to give God thanks and you haven’t?  Have you taken credit or placed it on your brains, your muscle, your striking good looks

Your ingenuity

Your charm?

Your genes?

If you possess any of these things, they have been given to you by the grace of God.

II.             Magnify  God’s name and God’s Word                   Psalm 138.2

In a tandem.  Together.  You cannot do one and not the other.  Unfortunately we want to do this.

III.            By seeking to be instruments of the wonderful                      Acts 5.13

In our understanding, magnifying is associated with vision.  That’s a good thing.  My 9th Grade Science teacher taught us a great lesson about our vision.   By taking a piece of chalk and placing it on our side where it is just in our view, he would ask us, what color was the chalk.  We could not see it because our view has limited color spectrum.  In order to see the wonderful, we would either have to pull the chalk into the place where we could see color or re-position our eyes.  That’s seeking the wonderful.  TO be instruments of the wonderful!

IV.           Magnifying God is not discriminatory                                      Acts 19.17

Jews and Greeks.  Nondenominational.

Some of us are “good Christian” but not very nice people, particularly to people who are not like us

Have you ever met a woman who can only praise God among women?

V.            Magnifying is to please God, not us                                2 Cor. 10.14-18

RETURN TO PSALM 34.3