Some thoughts on Praise and Worship

"I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth" Psalm 34:1

The words "praise" and "worship" have mutated in Christendom since the time that the Bible was written. Both of those words now immediately make the modern Christian think of corporate singing. Though praise is spoken of a great number of times in the New Testament it is only rarely used in reference to singing. Let's think about a practical illustrations.

Imagine that I set aside thirty minutes each week to tell April (my wife) how thankful I am for her, how much I love her, and how much I appreciate all that she is and does. Great idea, right? Now, how effective would it be if I took April completely for granted the rest of the week. What would she have to say to me each week when our set time of appreciation came around if I was rude, dismissive and thankless throughout each and every day? I can speak from experience that my thankfulness and appreciation of April needs to be a day in and day out occurrence or else problems will arise.

Do we sometimes act similarly with our Lord? Thinking that Sunday is the day to thank and worship Him and dismiss Him the rest of the time? I would carefully put forth the statement that if each day is not filled with praise and thanksgiving then our moments of worship on Sunday morning will always be riddled with a hollowness and hypocrisy. We will then find ourselves focusing on the musical style or the many other distractions that are available to us rather than turning our thoughts towards God in praise.

Brothers and sisters, I am writing to myself more so than to you. I pray that our body may be a body that is characterized by thanksgiving and praise to God for His abundant blessings that fill our lives. When we understand our position before God aright there should be no situation in our lives that does not evoke praise and thanksgiving. Our Salvation, our relationship with God, our brothers and sisters in the Lord, the material blessings that He has given us, and even our trials and difficulties are powerful reminders that His praise "shall continually be in my mouth."

If this joyous and thankful attitude is missing from your life the answer is not to try to create it by strength of will. Nothing would be worse for us than to be fake and inauthentic in our lives. The way this natural mindset will flow from us is by beholding our Savior and coming to a deeper and more vital understanding of His great love for us and all that He has done for us.

As an exercise to get you started read this passage of scripture out loud to yourself inserting your name where indicated*:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved , even when was dead in trespasses, made alive together with Christ (by grace has been saved), and raised up together, and made sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward in Christ Jesus." Eph. 2:4-7

Have a blessed week, my beloved brothers and sisters!

* I asked you to place your name where the word "us" is used in this passage. Anyone who has put their faith in Christ is one of the "us" being spoken of here. You are richly and personally loved, blessed and favored of God in Christ.