The Praise Cure | Pastor John Greiner

In this inspiring message, Pastor John delivers a powerful sermon on "The Praise Cure," exploring how consistent, intentional praise can transform circumstances and break through life's toughest moments. Drawing from scripture, he unpacks why praise is described as a sacrifice, because it requires overriding our natural tendency to complain or feel sorry for ourselves. Through vivid stories including Paul and Silas praising God at midnight in prison and a terminally ill evangelist who praised his way to a miraculous healing, Pastor John makes a compelling case that praise is not an emotion but a decision. If you are facing a health crisis, financial pressure, or simply a difficult season, this message will challenge you to open your mouth and let the high praises of God shift the atmosphere around you.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Commitment

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our Bibles up and uh make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, glad for Wednesday night. I have ears to hear what the Spirit is telling me tonight. I'm committed to being a doer of the word, not just a hearer, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Psalm 8 And Hebrews 13

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Let's look at a couple of places here. First of all, Psalm 8. And also Hebrews 13. We'll start with Psalms. Psalm 8, 1. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, hast thou ordained strength. And when Jesus quoted this verse, he said, Hast thou perfected praise? Anyway, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy in the avenger. So praise, according to Psalm 8, will cause the devil to steal or to pause. Alright, and then Hebrews 13, verse 15. By him that is Jesus, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God occasionally. Sometimes, when we feel like it. No, continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

Why Praise Is A Cure

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled The Praise Cure. The Praise Cure. You know, I believe that this is a year of first, and God wants us to press in and find the things that we can lighten the ship with and throw overboard and identify what is obsolete, what is maybe merely good when God's wanting us to do the greater thing, the best thing. And so it's time to focus. I've had God do that many times over the years, things that I was doing. He would just say, okay, that's enough of that. Okay, that's enough of that. Nothing wrong with what I'm doing. But if you keep on it, if you keep doing it, it becomes a weight. And so God reminded us here at the beginning of this year, 2026, the year of the new. Behold, I make all things new. Part of make is to lighten the load. And so when we're seeking God, it's good to remember how important praise is to that process. It's our due season. And, you know, we can't wait for circumstances to change. We need to praise God right in the midst of whatever circumstance we find ourselves in. I mean, you know, when you're when you're seeking God for a change, when things are changing, that is a vulnerable time. That's when the devil likes to attack and to distract and light a dumpster fire. So you'll get your eyes off of God and off of his plan and off of your prayers that you're, you know, you're seeking, asking, seeking, and knocking. You want God's very best for you. You want the new thing that God has for you. And so he's going to try to distract, but praise God. You know, we don't have to put up with him. We can praise God right in the middle of the circumstance. I mean, he's already healed us. We've been spending several weeks on healing. He's already healed us. We just praise him for it. He's already blessed us. We just, you know, we're not, we're not trying to get blessed. We already are blessed. So we can praise him for it. It doesn't matter if it's manifested yet or not. And uh we have to offer to God continually their book of Hebrews. Everybody shout continually.

The Sacrifice Of Your Lips

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Uh he said, the sacrifice of praise. Now, in my margin of, I've got a study Bible, in the margin of that of that verse 15, the fruit of our lips, it references Hosea 14, 2, which I just got through reading just a couple of weeks ago in my normal reading, and that talks about the calves of our lips. That's interesting. The calves of our lips. You know, in the Old Testament, what did they do? They offered uh lambs, they offered calves as a sacrifice. They would kill them, they would shed their blood, they would burn their, uh burn them on the altar, and so as a sacrifice. And every every sacrifice cost something. I mean, it cost you money, really. I mean, you had to take uh money to raise a calf, you had to feed the calf, you had to invest your time in the calf. Uh, you had a mother cow that gave birth to the calf, and so forth and so on. So you have all these these expenses, and what are you doing? You're honoring God and you're taking part of your income. You could sell the calf, because it's an agricultural society. Well, what are you doing? You're laying it on the altar and saying, God, I'm offering a sacrifice. And so here it talks about the calves of our lips. When we praise God, we're giving him a sacrifice. Why is it a sacrifice? Because your flesh wants to complain. Your flesh would like to have a pity party. Your flesh would like to just, you know, uh be a victim. And so when you overrule your flesh and you and you say, you know, I'm gonna praise God even when I don't feel like it. See, praise is not an emotion. It's not, it has nothing to do with your emotion. You just start praising God, and your emotions will follow. And praise and thanksgiving go together. So giving thanks unto his name. Praise and thanksgiving just go right together. I mean, you praise God, you thank God. And so uh, in fact, uh, instead of talking so much about the devil, we just need to learn how to praise God. Just stop down, start praising God. I was I was uh listening to uh uh Jesse DePlanish years ago. I'd heard his testimony about going to heaven. He he had a it wasn't like uh dying and go to heaven. He didn't die to go there like Brother Hagin did, but he he did have a visitation where he went to heaven. And uh and he describes it all, and and so when I heard the tape, I uh I talked to brother Brother Ofstein. I said, Brother Ostein, you need to get this guy in here and let him. And so he did. And so he he came here in 1988, and and uh brother Jesse would play that same tape for years. He played it on his TV program the day that he came to Lakewood and gave his testimony. But part of his testimony was when he went to heaven, you know, he was just, you know, he's talking to Jesus and everything. Tell my people I'm coming soon. Lord, they know that. No, tell my people I'm coming soon. Lord, Lord, they know that. They don't know that. God, you know, Jesus got kind of rough with him. He don't know that. You go tell them I'm coming soon. Well, that's 1988, you know, so we're closer than ever. But anyway, one of the things that he noticed there, among other things, is that you're walking around with people, and if you if you said praise God, then you know he just happened to say, Well, praise God, and then the person he was talking to says, Well, glory to God. And for it before long, everybody within earshot was on the ground, and they were just going over and over and shouting and praising God. And I mean, it was like it was so it was so easy to praise God. It was contagious. And so, you know, we got to have that mindset, I believe, that mindset here continually, uh the calves of our lips.

High Praise As Spiritual Warfare

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Let's look at Psalm 149, another interesting thing about praising God, and I'm talking about the praise cure. I mean, sometimes we just need to let loose and praise God. We ought to always do that, but I mean, especially when times are bad. Psalm 149, because it's just natural our flesh wants to have it feel sorry for ourselves. Our flesh wants to get somebody else involved in our misery and maybe get some sympathy from you. Sympathy is not of any consequence. I mean, you know, we don't need sympathy, we need encouragement. Psalm 149 says here, verse 6, let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand, talking about the saints of God. And the word praises is not even, it's italicized, so let the high of God, let the high of God be in their mouth. See, I mean, when the high of God comes out of your mouth, I mean it's it's powerful. And a two-edged sword in their hand, what's that? That's the word of God. To execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written. This honor have all his saints. Praise you, Lord. Isn't that amazing? So, you know, a lot of times we see things in this world that are out of kilter, especially in the political world. You have all these crazy Democrats, Democrats. I mean, they're just nuts. I mean, they're going nuts by the day, and they're saying all kinds. There was a uh woman uh running for Congress that said that she, you know, wanted to open up a concentration camp for all Zionists and uh and and MAGA people. Concentration camp. I mean, they're calling him a uh a Nazi and a fascist, and they're the ones that are always, they're using that imagery. But, you know, instead of instead of, you know, just gritting our teeth, sometimes we could just we could just lay on our beds and let the high praises of God be in our mouth, and and we could begin to execute judgment. I mean, when we praise God in the midst of all this stuff going on, I mean, angels are released and they begin to go out and change the atmosphere. Praise God. So bottom line is we need to praise Him continually.

Prayer With Thanksgiving Brings Peace

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Uh, Philippians, look at Philippians chapter 4, talking about the praise cure. Be careful or for nothing, or be anxious, be careful, be anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. See, let's not forget. I mean, most of us do pray, but how about praying what? With thanksgiving. Praying with praise. Let your request be made known unto God. I mean, after you've made a request, you ought to praise him before anything's changed. I mean, you ought to thank him, it's done. Be careful, don't be anxious for anything. I like the lit the message. It says, uh, uh, don't worry about anything, pray about everything. But then also it says, with prayer with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of the shalom of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So praise will still the anxious thoughts that come to you, the anxiety, the stress, it tries to gain entrance. You're facing something, it's looking so bad, it's never as bad as it looks. You got to learn, learn to know that. Oh, yeah, it's looking bad, but it's not as bad as it looks. And you start praising God, and somehow, the when you start thanking him and praising him, I mean, you know, you just start to get ease. You start to just, you start to relax and you start to, you know, have an attitude of faith against this thing that you're facing. Um, so let's look at Acts 16 and see this in motion.

Paul And Silas At Midnight

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Paul and Silas, I've preached over this many times. They were uh, you know, the chapter before, Barnabas uh and and and Paul split up, and uh and so Paul chose his nephew to go in his separate way, and and Silas went with Paul and they went uh to this place, a Macedonian, they they prayed to go to Macedonia. They went and there in verse so the multerse 22. So they they got in trouble, you know, they they cast the devil out of a young lady, the spirit of divination, and she was uh they were charging money for her to to tell fortunes. And so when they cast when they cast the spirit of divination out of that girl, when they lost their money, they got so mad that they laid many stripes. Verse 22, and the multitude rose up together against them, and and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison. I mean, they didn't even have a window. I mean, they're down in the dungeon, man, and their their backs are bleeding, and they made their feet fast in the shop, in the stocks. And at midnight, think about midnight, if you ever had a midnight hour when things were, you know, you couldn't sleep and things were weighing on you. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, and they and, see, don't forget the and they prayed, but they sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. I mean, they got excited about the answer to that prayer. I mean, they prayed all right, but then they sang praises so loud the whole prison woke up. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, waking out of his sleep, seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, we're all here. And so, you know, he preaches the gospel to the man and his family, and they all get saved. And so God, God shook that prison, and it wasn't really necessarily an earthquake in the sense of a like we understand an earthquake, and they're destructive. There's no earthquake that would just open up prison doors and knock off, you know, uh stocks. I mean, you know, it was a precision strike. And I tell you, God, God moved heaven. I mean, God moved to free his uh messengers because they were there by the will of God. They had fasted and prayed to find out where to go. They'd, you know, are to begin in this journey. I mean, they they were going to go to Bithynia, the spirit suffered them not. They they uh were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the gospel in Asia Minor. And then finally, uh Paul got a dream. Go uh, and there are Macedonian men come over here and talk to us. And so that was the Macedonian man that got saved. That jailer got saved in his old house. What a what an amazing thing that praise had to open up the praise cure. So um uh the power of praising God, you know, and as I mentioned, the sacrifice part comes because our flesh wants to have a pity party. You know, that's it's we've just got to overcome our natural tendency. The natural tendency of all uh human beings is to commiserate and to celebrate negative. And see, the whole world is wired negative. I mean, you can have, you know, you ever been in back when I used to, you know, before I got saved and understood the power of words, I mean, you could be around somebody and and uh you'd tell a bad story and they had a story worse than than yours. It was always always going all the way down, you know. And uh that's the way flesh is. But no, praise God, we've got a Holy Ghost, and we can know that we're free, we know we're healed, we know we're blessed. Now, it's easy to praise God right here, but what about midnight at your house? See, what happened? What about midnight at your house? Can you can you be a doer of the word? Can you praise God? And the answer is yes, you can. You've just got to offer the sacrifice of praise. Got to offer the sacrifice of praise.

A Promotion Testimony Through Praise

SPEAKER_00 16:36

So, you know, you've heard me tell this testimony before, but uh I had uh uh uh had moved to Corpus Christi. God moved us back, and uh and when he moved us back, we had to move in with my sister. We brought I had no job, I couldn't find a job, nobody wanted to hire me. And so finally I found out about a job, paid $6.50 an hour, so I started working for $6.50 an hour, and then about a few weeks later, the the guy hired, it gave me a raise, $8.50 an hour. I got made more on uh mileage than I did hours. But uh, and then you know it was beginning to fall apart. I mean, it was beginning to end, and I knew that it was gonna dry up. He gave me some notice. Hey, you know, we're fixed to complete this project, so we're not gonna need you, just give you a little advanced warning. So I began to pray and I just humble myself. I said, I Lord, I just humble myself under the mighty hand of God that you may exalt me in due time. Promotion cometh not from the south, the east, or the west. God's a judge, he puts down one, sets up another, Psalm 75. I just began to speak the word over my situation. I began to praise God for promotion. And so we had a meeting at Lakewood Church, and it was a prayer meeting about some purpose for the prayer meeting. I don't remember what was. It wasn't a whole lot of people there, maybe a couple of hundred people. And there was this lady there that I knew, I didn't know her well, but I knew to be a very solid person. And I was sitting there in my chair, and she passed by and noticed me. She said, Oh, Brother John, you've been in my heart lately. I've been praying for you. And you know the word I get every time I pray for you is promotion. I said, I agree with you, sister. And I mean, you know, I that was that was kind of confirmation that God had something for me. And I began to praise God for that for that uh promotion. And so, oh, I less than a week later, my phone rang, and it was a good friend of mine. He was president of a bank, used to do a lot of business with him, and I had visited with him a few weeks before and let him know that I'm looking for something, you know, wasn't sure what. And he said, Hey, John, I had a builder in my office yesterday, and he's wanting to uh open a remodeling firm, and I told him about you. He was asking me if there's anybody I knew that would that could run it, and and I told him about you. He's really interested. And so that led to me to have a job, and and he started that remodeling firm with his money and hired me to run it for a year. It lasted a whole year. See praise, the praise cure. I'm telling you, God gets involved when we praise him, when we resist it, the temptation to feel sorry for ourselves and have a pity party. Praise

Healing Story That Shifted To Praise

SPEAKER_00 19:19

God. You know, Brother Hagin, one of the most outstanding uh illustrations that I can that I can have in modern times, Brother Hagin tells about a healing evangelist, you know, and this was that back in probably the 40s, maybe the 50s. And uh he he got tuberculosis. That's when tuberculosis was a plague. In fact, my my grandmother, Mama Griner, a dad's mother, uh had tuberculosis, had to go out to West Texas and be in a sanatorium for like, had to live apart from her family like almost a year. And uh she recovered and was able to go back home, and she had a normal life, didn't die until she was in her 90s, so it didn't hurt her any. But this young man, he was young, had a wife and kids, and he's a preacher, and he struck with tuberculosis. He got so weak he couldn't preach. He went home, and of course, you know, the money dries up, so they move into the in-laws. The uh the wife's parents owned a farm in in uh uh uh East Texas, they're not Cleburne, the other one, uh where they make the uh fruit cakes. Anyway, I can't think of the name of the town, but it's it's uh so they they moved into this farmhouse and and and so that that provided a roof over their head, and they put this preacher in the bedroom, and he just got worse and worse, skin and bones. Uh he was just he was in bad shape, gasping for air, and uh his lungs deteriorated. And so one day uh the father and his father-in-law was out in the fields, you know, uh on a tractor, I think, and uh everybody else was busy, so he's in that room by himself, and he looked out the window and he saw this clump of trees 100 or 200 feet away from the house, you know. We'd removed from the house. He said, you know, I'm just gonna get, if I can, if I can, I'm gonna I'm gonna make my way to those trees. I'm gonna lay under the shade of those trees, and I'm gonna pray till I get my healing. Now that was his mindset. And he didn't have the revelation we have, but he he was gonna pray till he got his healing. So he wasn't a healing evangelist, he was just an evangelist, got people saved. So he he couldn't walk, he crawled, and he crawled all the way out to this group of trees. And of course, by the time he got out there, you know, the sun beating down on him. I mean, he was just wasted. He could not move. And laying just kind of on his face, and and he just was just so he didn't know if he was going to pass right. Then. And the devil came to him and says, Now you've done it. You've crawled out here, and nobody knows you're here, and they're not going to find you till the birds are eating your body. Isn't that a pleasant thought? You know? Well, thank God he understood that that was the devil talking to him. And so he uh he managed to turn over, get on his back, looking straight up into the sky through the leaves, you know. And he said, and he began to think. He said, you know, my wife has written to all the churches that I've preached at, and everybody's praying for me. There must be hundreds, maybe even thousands, of prayers for my healing. And if prayer could get my healing, it would have already manifested. He said, It's not gonna do one bit of good for me to pray for my healing because all these other prayers have been prayed, and I'm still the shape I'm in. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna lay here and I'm gonna praise God. How many of you know the Holy Ghost was saying he would think, change his thinking? I mean, he he had to shift gears. He had to get out of this begging routine and shift gears, and that's really what you do. After you pray, you shift gears and get into praise. You let the high praises of God get in your mouth. Well, in his case, I mean, he could barely whisper, you know, he would just say, Praise God. Oh, thank you, Jesus. And he'd do that for ten minutes or so, and finally he got up on one elbow, you know, was able to get up a little bit, and and he he just still whispering, you know, and then a little bit longer after that, then he he was able to get up and lean up against a tree, and now he's praising God in a voice, you know, praise God for my healing. Thank you, Lord, for healing me. Thank you, Lord. And, you know, after just a little bit, he stood up on his feet. He walked out of that group of trees and got out in the middle of the open and lifted his hand and started shouting at the top of his lungs, Glory to God, I got my healing! Hallelujah, I'm healed. And his father-in-law heard him way out in the way half a mile away in the next pasture, and he came running to see what was going on. And that man got perfectly healed. So he went back to the doctor for a checkup, and uh and they examined him and they did an x-ray, and they said, Sir, do you realize you've got a hole in your lung? He said, I don't know about that. I just know I'm healed. That's all I know. I'm I'm doing just fine. I've got my strength back. I'm I'm healed. He said, Well, you know, would you stay here for a few days? We want to examine you and run some tests on you. We we don't understand this. And so they did. And finally, they couldn't, you know, they couldn't fault him. They had normal oxygen levels, and and with their, you know, back then the limited amount of uh diagnostics, they had x-rays about all they had. They said, You must be the eighth wonder of the world. You've got a hole in your lung. You can't live, but here you are living. He said, Well, it's God, it's God's power. I'm living on God's power. Come on, lift your hands right now.

Corporate Praise And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 24:58

I mean, he took the praise cure without anybody really telling him how to do it. The Holy Ghost, you know, guided him in all of those, those, those actions. And so uh, don't wait for circumstances to change. Just go ahead and praise God and thank him because you're healed, thank him because you're blessed, thank him that you have an abundant supply, thank him that he has heard your cry and help is on the way. Come on, lift your hand and receive tonight the praise cure. Hallelujah. Glory to come on, let's just praise him a little while. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. We give you praise for all the good things that you're doing. We thank you, Father, for our nation. We thank you for our president. We thank you for giving him wisdom concerning all the things that are before him. Lord, it's a dark time in many places of the earth, and he is he's put his heart into intervening in a lot of different areas. And Lord, we just thank you for divine wisdom, Lord. We praise you for breakthrough. Praise you for breakthrough. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Amen, amen, amen.