PRAISE AND SING YOUR WAY TO VICTORY!
--A Grandpa Talk to Techi!       DO 2833 1/91

         1. Can I tell you a secret? This is one of my mother's secrets. She said, "Often the secret of victory is down the much-neglected path of praise." In other words, while you're praising the Lord and singing His praises, you can't be thinking about anything negative and the Devil can't be lying to you. The song or the praise takes up your consciousness and concentrates it on the Lord and what you're singing or praising the Lord about! The Devil hates praise!
         2. And I'll tell you something about your mother that you may not know. One of her secrets is that she goes around continuously with a song of praise on her lips! She doesn't even know she's doing it sometimes, but she's singing in the bathroom, she's singing in the bedroom, she's singing in her little office, she's just always singing!--Sometimes saying the words, a lot of times just humming little tunes. I'll stop and ask her, "What is that song?" and she'll say, "Oh, was I singing?" She doesn't even know she's doing it!
         3. I think that's one reason she has such victory in the areas of faith and courage and cheerfulness! She's always cheerful and she's always singing songs to the Lord. She's just constantly praising the Lord! And if she's not doing it out loud, she's doing it in her heart or in her head!
         4. I don't sing out loud all the time, but I've almost always got some kind of song to the Lord or about the Lord running through my head and my heart. I'll often wake up in the morning with a new tune, some other song for the day! We have so many blessings and so many things to be thankful for! As the little song goes:

Count your blessings,
Name them one by one!
Count your blessings,
See what God has done!
Count your blessings,
Name them one by one!
Count your many blessings,
See what God has done!

         5. When you're counting your blessings, you can't be complaining or murmuring about things! If you're counting all the good things you have and all the blessings God's given to you, you can't be complaining about this little thing or that little thing, because you're too busy counting your blessings and thanking the Lord and praising Him for them! Amen?
         6. So that's the story and the secret I wanted to tell you! When someone asked my mother why she always seemed to be so victorious, she said, "I'll tell you a secret! The secret to victory is down the much-neglected path of praise!"
         7. So if you have any problem along that line, sing! Praise the Lord! The Devil hates to hear praise; he hates to hear songs of praise, and he'll have to flee, because you're resisting him! You're doing something against him, actively fighting against him!
         8. My mother used to say that the Devil's favorite weapon is discouragement. If he can't get you to believe that the Lord doesn't love you and didn't save you and everything else, he just tries to get you discouraged about yourself.
         9. Never look inward! Keep your eyes off yourself, because that's bad business! Ourselves are nothing but bad selves. There's no "good self, bad self" like the Holiness people and the Baptists teach. The Baptists say, "You always have to be fighting your bad self!" And the Holiness people say, "You just need to get rid of your bad self so there's nothing left but your good self!" But we teach that there's no way to get rid of bad self or good self except with Himself!
         10. When the Devil tries to get you down and starts giving you bad thoughts or discouragement or whatever, just start praising the Lord and singing! It's wonderful what songs can do for you, that's why the church sings so many songs all the time. The trouble is, they've forgotten their work of getting out to witness and win the world. They just sit around singing songs because they enjoy that so much!
         11. So how's that? (Techi: That's good!) Lord bless her, in Jesus' name, and help her to get the victory with praise and song! Every time the Devil tempts you with some kind of discouragement or tries to tell you how bad you are, just start singing!
         12. You always hear me praising the Lord, don't you? I'm a pretty happy guy, right? I'm thankful for all the things the Lord has given us and has helped us with--His protection and His provision. We lack for nothing, amen? The Lord's so good to us! So let's be happy people! (Sings:)

We're a happy people, yes we are!
We're a happy people, yes we are!
All day long we sing this song,
Jesus will right every wrong!
We're a happy people, yes we are, amen!



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