"Hallelujah!"

It's one of the most popular Christian declarations. Others might take it lightly either heaping it with an empty heart or even making crude jokes about it, but there is so much power to the phrase. "Hallelujah" means "praise Yah" or "praise God." Sure, praises can come out empty at times, but when we say it for all it means, it has the power to affect our whole day, even our whole life.

We all have so many reasons to praise God - the life we have, the blessings we receive, the relationships we enjoy and the eternity we have been promised in Christ. All these things lead us simply to give praises to God.

Speaking in a way that declares the praises and thankfulness we have towards God has extreme power that can change our speech, thoughts and actions. Here are three of the many ways that praises change us.

It take the focus off ourselves and on God

When we make ourselves the center, we not only put the focus on us but the pressure as well. It can be exhausting to have such a huge amount of expectation and weight on our own shoulders, but when we return praises to God we are declaring that everything is up to Him and that we can lay our burdens down at the feet of the cross of Jesus.

Psalm 35:28 says, "Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long." We were never meant to hold all praises.  We were never meant to praise ourselves and we were never supposed to think that we are worthy of the praise, whether because of our talents, money, job or whatever. It's just too heavy a thing to carry. We need to return the praises to God for all that He is and only then do we feel the weight lifted.

It scares the enemy

When we shout praises to God, we declare that our faith and trust is in Him. Praise is our primary way of declaring full submission to God, and it scares the enemy when we submit to God. James 4:7 tells us, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

We are up against an enemy that we cannot fight with physical weapons, but we have praises as a spiritual weapon that will defeat the enemy and cause Him to flee.

It cancels the lies and negativity

I love reading Ezekiel 37 where God shows the prophet Ezekiel a vision of the valley of dry bones and commands him to prophesy to them. As the prophet prophesied, scripture says that they started coming to life. In the same way we are to prophesy and declare praises to the dry bones in our life.

What are the dry bones? They are areas in your life that have been affected by lies that may have ruined your identity, confidence, skills, relationships or focus. When we start declaring praises, we start declaring truths and these truths will set us free from all lies and negative thoughts that do not come from God.