"let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--"
-Hebrews 13:15

Attitude adjustment...those two words, when placed together, conjure a great deal of imagery for me, both corporal and toungue-in-cheek. I can remember, years ago, hearing somebody's mother use the term, referring to the haircut she forced on her son. Apparently he had been misbehaving then lately and a haircut might have remedied the situation. I can certainly identify...mostly with the boy. Fitting.

Sometimes, we find ourselves in a bad way. Our attitudes toward our lives and our situations can be acidic and deprecating, as we proclaim our dissaproval of everything around us; feeling sorry for ourselves, criticizing and redecorating our homes with sour grapes. Our words, laced with traces of intentional harm, escape into the world, doing little bits of damage here and there; storing themselves up in the ones we love, shaping their perceptions and tipping the balance.

How do we stop it? How did we even start in the first place? I don't know. But what I do know is this: it is pretty hard to be negative when we are praising God. Many other preachers have pointed this out in the past, and with good reason; praising God adjusts our attitude.

It's true. As believers and, as ministers, we must endeavor to keep an attitude of praise...even when things aren't as we would like them to be; no, especially then.

The author of the book of Hebrews knew this. In fact, the above scripture specifically says to continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise. If we are continually praising God, well, that doesn't leave a bunch of time to be bitter or to complain, does it?

The word "continually" in this particular scripture is actually the marriage of two Greek words that were put together to convey a very specific meaning. The first word is "dia", which generally means through, or by means of. The second word is "pas", meaning all, every(thing, one) or always. So, through everything, always and regarding everyone, we are to offer praise to God.

It can be hard, in the moment, to release control of our mood to God. Finding enough of a foothold, within the storm is not always easy. It's okay. God knows that. But, once we get started, praising God is guaranteed to change our hearts. It might take a few minutes, or hours, or days, or years...but, it is always a worthy use of our time, words and our songs, because it is where we are supposed to be.

Oh, I almost forgot, I intentionally left out the first part and the last part of Hebrews 13:15. Now, look at the whole thing:

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Now, not only is my attitude adjusted, but I have goosebumps to boot.