In Hebrews 13:15 the scripture says, "let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name". Our lips should and must continually be in a state of recognition of the Lord who saved us. A continual state of worship. Each of us live in a continual state of struggle with the flesh, but through that struggle, with Jesus Christ as Lord, God is continually extending mercy and grace to us. What a reason to continually praise!
This praise is a sacrifice. A sacrifice is something which costs us. And it is a significant cost. This is not a casual recognition of God. Does it cost us to recognize God for twenty seconds when we are asking him for a favor? No. To offer the Lord a sacrifice of praise means it will cost us. It is a significant cost to worship God well. It means a reprioritizing of your thoughts and actions. It means setting him first before yourself. Time, surely. Pride, of course. Status and perception from others, most certainly.
Verse 16 continues with, "and do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased". Notice that God does not stop in directing people to "offer the sacrifice of praise". Surely many people, occasionally myself included at times, put simple lip service in saying things yet our hearts are not fully connecting to our words. This is a fault of ancient Israel time and time again in the Old Testament. God was more concerned about the heart than the deeds.
Yet as we see with verse 16 , God knows that we offer lip service at times. Doing good and sharing with others can be an outward sign that the heart is in the right place. God does not direct this in order to do good towards salvation. Salvation is already accomplished in Christ Jesus. This is meant to be an overflow of a heart of praise set on God. After all, out of the abundance of the heart your mouth will speak (Luke 6:45).
Certainly, God intends for our good deeds and sharing with others to be tied to the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. When we do good deeds and show love towards others, we should verbalize this fruit from our lips and point others to God. This could be as an encouragement and exhortation to believers or it could be a witness to unbelievers. Either way, we should be loving God in a way where the overflow of out hearts causes us to worship God through good deeds and verbally giving God the praise while we do so. What a testimony of God's mercy and compassion to the world this could be!
I'm definitely not a chocolate or candy cane flavored lip kind of person. But I do hope that my lips are flavored with the fruity praise of my God. I hope yours are fruity lips as well.
worship Him 24/7...
scott