My Doxology

This week I've been studying the word "Doxology" and I came across some really good material. For years, especially as a kid, I was under the impression that whenever the worship leader would stand up and most of the time at the end of the service, he would say, "Let's stand and turn to the front cover of your hymnal and sing the 'Doxology'.", I thought that meant literally, the song that ended the service. Silly, right? (I know you've been there too.)

Now with a little clearer understanding (and that I'm not a kid anymore), "Doxology" simply means to attribute praise to or the act of attributing praise to God. We are singing the familiar hymn, Doxology, this weekend in church and I wanted to unpack that word just a bit before we sing it, in hopes of bringing people to a new place of worship as they ascribe praise to our God together.

As Paul was writing to the churches, he writes a great doxology in the first chapter of Ephesians. Here are a few key passages to give you an idea of what he is doing in giving praise to God.

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

It is to our benefit and his pleasure that we praise him. What Paul was writing describes the church praising God because of his glory made known to us and in us. We praise him for his grace. We praise him for every heavenly blessing. We praise him for the Holy Spirit who is a deposit of our inheritance of our future eternal glory in heaven. Any one of those is reason enough. I hope that I get this in my life. All of what I have is a reason to praise him. All that you have is a reason to praise him. I would even go as far as to say that all that I don't have is still reason to praise him.

In the end, I think what Paul might be getting at (and what I think he hoped for in his own life as a servant of Christ) was that our lives should be a Doxology to Him.

Let me know what reasons you have in your life to praise Him...