Giving compliments to God.

People commonly think praise and worship are just synonyms for the word compliments: If you praise God, you say nice things about him, to him. “Oh Lord, ooh you are so big, so absolutely huge; gosh we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.” Like that.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with complimenting God. He’s awesome! The problem is sometimes we aren’t really complimenting him; we’re telling him this stuff because we think it’s part of the formula for getting our requests answered. When we pray—and many Christians actually believe and teach this!—we have to begin with the compliments. We have to tell God nice things and butter him up praise him properly.

As demonstrated, they claim, by the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” is supposedly praise. Not prayer requests for God to make his own name holy, bring about his kingdom, and encourage us to obey him. Anyway, because they imagine these are praises not requests, they insist the Lord’s Prayer begins with praise… so our prayers should begin with praise. Start by telling God how awesome he is. “Dear heavenly Father… ooh you are so big…” and so forth.

Again: Nothing wrong with complimenting God; nothing wrong with beginning our prayers with compliments. Nothing wrong with entire prayers consisting of compliments. Some of the psalms are nothing but compliments.

Psalm 145.0-7 CSB

0A hymn of David.

1I exalt you, my God the King,

and bless your name forever and ever.

2I will bless you every day;

I will praise your name forever and ever.

3The LORD is great and is highly praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

4One generation will declare your works to the next

and will proclaim your mighty acts.

5I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty

and your wondrous works.

6They will proclaim the power of your awe-inspiring acts,

and I will declare your greatness.

7They will give a testimony of your great goodness

and will joyfully sing of your righteousness.

David ben Jesse had loads of plaudits to give God for what he’d done. No doubt we can all think of great things God did in the bible, and hopefully we also have some testimonies of great things he did in our own lives. Or how he graciously behaves towards us when we interact with him.

Psalm 145.8-13 CSB

8The LORD is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and great in faithful love.

9The LORD is good to everyone;

his compassion rests on all he has made.

10All you have made will thank you, LORD;

the faithful will bless you.

11They will speak of the glory of your kingdom

and will declare your might,

12informing all people of your mighty acts

and of the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom;

your rule is for all generations.

The LORD is faithful in all his words

and gracious in all his actions.

There are so many legit things to praise God about. Things he created, things he did in ancient Israel’s past, things he did a while ago for the psalmist, things he recently did. Plus God has an outstanding character, and he appreciates it when we appreciate that. Now if we’d only mimic that.

Of course the obvious problem when complimenting God is hypocrisy. Those who tell us we gotta start our prayers with praise, are subtly teaching us the formula for getting our prayers answered is flattery. That God’s character is so weak, we can easily get what we want out of him after we’ve spread the butter nice ’n thick. So tell him lots of nice things about himself. The bigger the thing you’re asking for, the harder you’ve gotta praise him. Really make him feel it!

As if God’s not gonna see right through this act. Even if all our praises are totally true—because God is just that awesome—he’s gonna know our ulterior motives before we even open our mouths. He’s gonna know the praise isn’t sincere; we’re not saying that stuff because we love him, but because we wanna manipulate him. As if he can be manipulated. He’s almighty, remember?

You don’t have to butter him up when you truly have a need, y’know.

Psalm 145.14-16 CSB

14The LORD helps all who fall;

he raises up all who are oppressed.

15All eyes look to you,

and you give them their food at the proper time.

16You open your hand

and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

And even if it’s not a dire need—even if it’s something you just want or desire, and you’re trying to be as unselfish as you can in asking for it—God appreciates it when we ask him for it without resorting to manipulative, condescending behavior—to flattery, simpering, or sweet talk. Ask him sincerely. See what he says.

I’ll let David have the last word:

Psalm 145.17-21 CSB

17The LORD is righteous in all his ways

and faithful in all his acts.

18The LORD is near all who call out to him,

all who call out to him with integrity.

19He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;

he hears their cry for help and saves them.

20The LORD guards all those who love him,

but he destroys all the wicked.

21My mouth will declare the LORD’s praise;

let every living thing

bless his holy name forever and ever.