Pray For Your Church: 31 Day Challenge—Day Nineteen

Day 19: That we would exalt his name together

Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! (Psalm 34:3 ESV)

When we magnify God we aren’t exaggerating His greatness. We’re using all of our resources to see and show how great He really is. As John Piper has helpfully illustrated magnifying God is like using a telescope and not a microscope. I love how David calls upon the people to join Him in this work of exalting God’s name. God is so great that it takes the entire church to even scratch the surface of His greatness. Shouldn’t this be the goal of every Christian and every church?

I like how Piper makes this practical by showing how thanksgiving is the chief way to magnify God’s greatness:

Therefore, when gratitude springs up in the human heart toward God, he is magnified as the wealthy source of our blessing. He is acknowledged as giver and benefactor and therefore as glorious. But when gratitude does not spring up in our hearts at God’s great goodness to us, it probably means that we don’t want to pay him a compliment; we don’t want to magnify him as our benefactor. From here

Father, you have been so good to us. Give us hearts of gratitude which magnify your greatness. You are so grand and we are so feeble, we need your grace to exalt you. We know, Lord, that if given to ourselves we’ll go about our lives trying to magnify our own names. Rescue us from this ignorance. May we be found in You—the truly great One. May our church be united in our singular aim of exalting your name together. We are fine if nobody remembers us or our church—so long as You are exalted.