Quotable

Praise means to set a high value on God, and to express this value in words. Praise is an essential as well as an initial element in religion. When God converts a soul, He puts in it, as a germinal and organic principle, the spirit of praise. A true conversion is clothed in the garment of praise in exchange for the spirit of heaviness. The presence or absence of praise marks the depth and intensity, or the beggary, of our spiritual life. Prayer and praise are joined as the sun and its light are joined, as the flower and its sweetness are joined. If prayer be the life of religion, praise is the wing by which that life soars to Heaven. Prayer brings God down to the soul and praise lifts the soul up to God. Prayer has much to do with our sins and ourselves and God; praise has much to do with grace, gratitude, and God.

—E. M. Bounds