praising God first

When it comes to a relationship with God, it's really easy to ask good to fulfill our needs before we praise His name...

When we ask God to for things in prayers, our hearts always must be right before we ask. The best way to prepare our hearts is to praise God.

Imagine asking your parents for everything you ever wanted, but never being thankful for them or realizing the work that they put it in to get you those things. Most parents do much for their children in order for them to have the best lives they can give us.

Look at this from God's eyes. He sacrificed his one and only son for each and everyone of you so that we could all be free from sin. That makes me want to praise God before anything that I ever ask from him.

...and we have the nerve to ask God for so many things before we even praise his name....

The Lord actually teaches us to pray...

He said to them, "When you pray, say:
"'Father, hallowed be your name, 
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation. (Luke 11:2-4)

Notice the order of this prayer. First Jesus praised God; then he made his requests. Again...praising God first puts us in the right frame of mind to tell him about our needs. Too often our prayers are more like shopping lists than conversations.

I encourage you all to remember that before anything else we need to praise God above all things.