What would your worship look like if…
One of the biggest challenges we all face in worship is to keep our praise and worship of the Lord about Him. Sounds easy enough, right?! Of course, most people don’t intentionally redefine praise or deliberately try to give God something He did not ask for in our worship – however, we do all that at times and then wonder why the blessings and promises attached to worship don’t seem to really materialize in our lives. Does that mean you’ve been worshipping wrong and that’s why things aren’t working out for you? No way! God is faithful way beyond anything we could ever, ever, ever do, but what it does mean is that we must all search the Word of God, learn about what God wants and align our thinking and behaviors and definitions with how the Lord has defined them, walk in His will and His ways – that is the foundation of living for Him.
One of the things we all tend to do when we praise and worship the Lord is we talk about ourselves. We bring our needs to Him in our worship and hope He’ll take them – but that is what prayer is for, not worship! We sing about our own journeys and about how God factors into that. Sometimes we sing songs that don’t actually say the name of God! While that isn’t “wrong“, it is not accurate to how God defines praise and worship. Praise and worship are, first and foremost before they are anything else, ministry to Him – exaltation, lifting His name high, crying out adoration and words of glory, honor and majesty to the King!
Your WHY for worship must go beyond yourself – that is where the real power is found in God’s plan for praise as a spiritual weapon of warfare!
Here’s a challenging question to think about: What would your worship look like if you had no needs? If every, single thing in your life was working out – relationships with your spouse or children, or parents or friends or your boss, if you had more than enough money, your health and the health of everyone you loved, and everything else that burdens you daily were prospering… What would drive you to worship? What would you have within yourself to offer the Lord as a sacrifice of praise? One of the things I like to ask people about worship is this: “What is your WHY?”
The reasons you worship the Lord must extend beyond yourself and your experiences and circumstances. You should be just as grateful on the day you lose everything as you are on the day that you received it. You should worship the Lord with as much passion when you are devastated as when you are filled with joy. You’ll spend the rest of your life chewing on that and walking through it and challenging yourself to go further, to push past your personal boundaries and PRAISE GOD in the ways He has asked for. Your WHY for worship must go beyond yourself – that is where the real power is found in God’s plan for praise as a spiritual weapon of warfare!
Thought for today
Psalm 96:7-9 says, “Give unto the Lord, O families of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth.” The “beauty of His holiness” the primary reason for praise and worship. There are many reasons why we thank and praise the Lord in our worship, but underneath it all, when everything else has gotten worse or harder, the beauty of the holiness of the Lord of Hosts, your Father in heaven, the Almighty God has never changed and will never change. You must have a reason beyond yourself why you worship because that will propel you forward and keep your commitment to ministering to the Lord fresh and exhilarating. Beyond any other reason we could ever come up with, He is worthy!
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