OH, MAGNIFY THE LORD
What does this mean?
And how can we do it today?

Psalm 34:1-4
“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”

How Big Is God?
One day, a young lad asked his father the question: How Big Is God?
After thinking about it, he looked up into the sky and saw an airplane flying overhead.
He told his son that God was as big as that airplane.
The lad was not sure about that.
A few days later, they happened to be at the airport and the father asked his son if he remembered their conversation a few days earlier?
He then took the son to see an airplane (up close).
The lad was marveled and expressed his awe.
The father told him that when you keep God away from you, He appears very small, but when you get close to Him, He is much bigger.
There is a lesson we should learn.

“Oh, Magnify The LORD!”
As we age, our eyesight sometimes gets worse.
We find that we need the assistance of a magnifying glass to help us see small things and read smaller print.
Does the magnifying glass make things bigger?
No, it is no bigger, but the appearance in our vision makes it seem bigger.
As we read in the Psalm, would it be great to be delivered from all our fears?
It appears the psalmist had figured out the secret about three thousand years ago.
When God is magnified, we don’t make God bigger.
We merely recognize Him better through that focus for what He really is.
When God is magnified, fear is minimized.
Fear and a right view of God will find it hard to co-exist.
If my heart is filled with fear, I am not rightly estimating God in His capacities and interest and His care in my life.
Yet when we learn to trust Him, many of our fears go away.
God wants it this way.
Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.
1 Peter 5:7 : “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you”.

Bible Examples
Throughout the Bible in situations where the odds are against the people of God, we see that God helps them to overcome.
Sometimes miraculously.
The story of Gideon
The story of the conquest of Canaan.
David when he faced the giant.
In 2 Chronicles 20 we read of a fearful episode.
Judah was threatened with an impressive force of surrounding nations that decided she was easy pickings and they “came against Jehoshaphat” (v.1).
Chronicles is famous for big odds.
We often find that God’s people were few and God’s enemies were many.
When God was forgotten, the odds were overwhelmingly bad;
when God was magnified, the odds didn’t matter anymore.
Jehoshaphat was the fourth king over Judah.
He was not an evil king.
He was not entirely a good king. Let us just say he was wishy-washy at times in his life.
This event turned out to be his shining moment.
Like David in today’s Psalm (34), Jehoshaphat “was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord” (v.3).
After a fast, the king gathered the people and magnified the Lord.
In verses 6-12, Jehoshaphat speaks a prayer in the midst of the people.
He turned the whole problem over to God.
In verse 12 we read: “O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on Thee”.
What a great way to end a prayer.
We may not always know what to do in our own situations,
but if we can learn to look to God, He will take care of it.

Conclusion
When we magnify the Lord, we can see Him more clearly!
We magnify the Lord so that we can admit that we bring little to the battle.
We don’t have to bring much because the battle belongs to the Lord.
We also know that the closer we get to God the bigger He seems to be.
All we have to do is: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…” (James 4:8)
By Carey Scott from an article by Ken Green

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