Every day, I will praise You

Every day I will praise You, Lord.

David, the Psalmist, makes this commitment in Psalm 145… daily praise, and even forever praise.  (verse 2)

Even though David was well aware that some days are tougher than steel and colder than ice.  Even though he knew that pain is real and piercing and that loss is inevitable and wrenching, and that there are moments when it’s all you can do just to breathe, David chose to say, “Yes!” to praise.

WHY?
Why choose to praise when there are days that we want to shout, with every fiber of our being, “No!  Oh, please, no… Lord, no.” ???

Read on, and look for David’s reasons (and for your reasons, too) in Psalm 145.  Then, let us think about this together.

Psalm 145

A psalm of praise. Of David.

¹ I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
² Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

³ Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
⁴ One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
⁵ They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.^[b]
6 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
⁷ They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

⁸ The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

⁹ The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
¹⁰ All your works praise you, Lord;
your faithful people extol you.
¹¹ They tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
¹² so that all people may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
and faithful in all he does.^[c]
14 The Lord upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
¹⁶ You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and faithful in all he does.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰ The Lord watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

²¹ My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

So, what are the reasons that David gives for his daily praise?

1.  The Lord is great.
He is great… far beyond our understanding.   (So, when we don’t understand… He is still great.)

“His greatness no one can fathom.” (3b)

2.  The Lord is worthy of praise.
A fact is a fact… no matter how we are feeling.  He is worthy.  Period.

“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise” (3a)

3.  The Lord has done incredible, mighty, awesome, wonderful things.
His creation and His recreation of our hearts and lives give us a glimpse, but we cannot begin to fathom all that the Lord has done.

⁴ One generation commends Your works to another;
they tell of Your mighty acts.

…and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.^{[ 5 b ]}

⁶ They tell of the power of Your awesome works—
and I will proclaim Your great deeds.

4.  The Lord is majestic in His splendor.
We cannot even imagine the majesty of the Lord.

Take all of the most beautiful, awesome, and wondrous things and places you have ever seen…
take the vastness of space…
take the intricate and amazing work in a creature as tiny as an ant…
take the most majestic, sparkling, costly royal splendor that mankind has ever been able to produce (with the minds that He created)…

All of that, together, is a part of His creative and majestic creation (which is also a revelation of who He is).

But all of it together,
from the microscopic to the humongous beyond belief,
and from the wonder of all living things to the beauty of every kind of ecosystem…

reveals only a fraction of His majesty.

⁵ They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.

5.  The Lord is powerful.
If His works are powerful, how much moreso is He!  He made them.  They are just His creation, but He is the source of their power.

⁶ They tell of the power of Your awesome works—

6.  The Lord is abundantly good.
Everything good comes from His hand.  He made everything and pronouced it “good” because His original Creation, before mankind brought sin, reflected the goodness of its Creator.  He is good in every way that it is possible to be good.  His goodness is cause for celebration!  His is not a false goodness.  It is not pretense.  It is righteous goodness.  He does not show preference.  He is good to ALL.

⁷ They celebrate Your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

⁹ The Lord is good to all;
 He has compassion on all He has made.

7.  The Lord is righteous.
     He is not merely good… He is holy and righteous.  He will ultimately make everything right.  His goodness goes beyond what we know as goodness, because it is righteous.  It is totally pure… in love… in motivation.  There is no darkness in Him at all.  His righteousness produces joy. 

^7b and joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all His ways
and faithful in all he does.

8.  The character of the Lord is tender toward us.

    a.  He is gracious
Full of grace, flowing continually out of His abundantly gracious character (who He is), God gives His grace without expecting us to earn or deserve it.  He gives His grace because He is gracious.

     b.  He is compassionate.
His compassion goes far beyond just caring about us.  His compassion motivated Him to give Himself completely in the person of Christ.  Compassion is caring that is deep enough to motivate a profound expression of love.

     c.  He is slow to anger.
The Lord is patient with us… much moreso than we are with one another, and even with our own loved ones.  Although He is deeply grieved by our every hurt and loss (compassionate), He remains patient with mankind, desiring to give us continued opportunity to turn to Him for salvation.

    d.  He is rich in love.
The love of the Lord is vast and immeasureable.  If the earth is His footstool and everything belongs to Him as Creator, He is certainly rich… but it is the limitless stores of his wealth of love that He longs for us to know.

How far would His love go?
From Heaven… to earth… to the cross… to death… and even to hell,
all to gain the victory for us over sin, hell, and death.

His love took our most hideous weakness and ugliness and enveloped it in the strength and everlasting power of His pure holiness, removing the stinking graveclothes of our sin and clothing us with His own righteousness.

⁸ The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

⁹ The Lord is good to all;
 He has compassion on all He has made.

9.  His Kingdom is glorious and everlasting.
In order to have a Kingdom, one must be a King.  But His is not just any Kingdom, and He is not just any King.  He is the King of Kings, and His Kingdom is everlasting.  He can never be de-throned because He is the Lord of all, even of those who do not acknowledge Him.

¹⁰ All your works praise You, Lord;
  Your faithful people extol You.
¹¹ They tell of the glory of Your kingdom
and speak of Your might,
¹² so that all people may know of Your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Your dominion endures through all generations.

10.  The Lord is trustworthy and faithful.
        He is good, so we can trust Him.  He is a keeper of promises.  He does not give up or quit.  He is faithful to keep His word, to remain unchanging, to finish all of the good works that He has begun, and to someday make everything right.

The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises
and faithful in all He does.^{[ 13 c ]} 

¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all His ways
and faithful in all He does.

11. The Lord is our Sustainer and the Giver of all good things.
Without the sustaining presence of the Lord in all of Creation, the needs of every living thing would not be met.

¹⁵ The eyes of all look to You,
and You give them their food at the proper time.
¹⁶ You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

12.  The Lord is our helper and our Savior.
He helps us get up when we fall and even holds us as we are falling.  He lifts up those who are bowed beneath a heavy load and brings joy to hearts that have been humbled or broken.  He is near.  He is with us.  He hears us when we call on Him in truth.  He fulfills our desires.  He hears our cries.  He saves us.  He watches over us.  He will someday remove us from the very presence of evil.  He is our loving and caring Shepherd.

¹⁴ The Lord upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.

¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call on Him,
to all who call on Him in truth.

¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him;
  He hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰ The Lord watches over all who love Him,
but all the wicked He will destroy.

  The Lord is close by, waiting for us to understand that we need Him and come into agreement with the truth about who He is and who we are. Then, when we see our need for Him and cry out, He knows that knowing Him, having His forgiveness, and living in fellowship with Him have become Him the desires of our heart. He hears our cry, and He saves us (when we have asked Him to come into our lives as Savior and Lord).

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David’s conclustion, in light of who God is,
is that he must commit himself to daily and eternal praise.

David begins the Psalm with this commitment and ends the Psalm with a restatement of his personal commitment to daily and eternal praise.

This is the final verse of Psalm 145:

²¹ My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

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The notes on Bible Gateway about Psalm 145 tell us this interesting bit of information.  “This psalm is an acrostic poem, the verses of which (including verse 13b) begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.” 

This fact tells me that David was also communicating the fact that the Lord is the Alpha and Omega, worthy of praise from the beginning of time and throughout eternity, meeting all of our needs and sharing His love with all of mankind, keeping His promises and fulfilling His Kingdom with both awesome power and gracious, loving tenderness.

May every day become a day of praise.

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This post was written by Cynthia Boyd, with the inspiration of Psalm 145.
The NIV Scripture text was copied from Bible Gateway

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+145

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The missing piece…What Every Christian Should Know About Worship

SOMETHING IS MISSING…

What is the missing piece of the puzzle?

Many Christians try to do what they know they need to do in order to grow as a Christian and become more like Jesus. We read our Bibles, we pray, we attend church, we sing songs of worship, and we try to be a witness for Christ through the way we live our lives as well as by what we say. Some Christians even take responsibility for sharing the good news about Jesus when the opportunity arises. Sadly, for many Christians, there is still a nagging feeling that something is missing. My personal belief, based upon years of learning from scripture, from the writings and teachings of others (through books, sermons, articles, and conferences), and from my own experience, is that true worship is the missing piece.

KEY A:  RELATIONSHIP  THROUGH  WORSHIP
True worship connects us to the very heart of God like nothing else can.

Jesus said to the woman at the well that God is Spirit and that all who truly worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)  Jesus named only two requirements for authentic worship, and yet there are many Christians who don’t feel that they really understand what it means to worship.  Others may not have spent much time thinking about worship but would admit that their corporate worship experiences seem to be lacking in some way and that their personal worship time is practically non-existant. 

Remember that Jesus could have spoken to the woman at the well about anything, and yet He chose to talk about worship.  Certainly, acts of service and devotion are vitally important.  So is sharing the gospel, as well as other critical elements of the Christian life, such as discipleship, fellowship with other believers, Biblical knowledge, and prayer,  And yet, Jesus chose to talk about worship   His conversation with the Samaritan woman was life changing for her.  She was confronted with the truth about who she was.  She initially recognized that Jesus must somehow be very closely related to God since He knew everything about her, and she ultimately realized that she was seeing God Himself in the form of a man.  The woman’s response to these revelations of truth (who Jesus/God is and who she was) revealed the change that had occured in her life as a result of her encounter with Christ.  She, who had been such an outcast that she ceme to the well alone at a time when no one else would be there, suddenly wanted to tell everyone what had just happened to her.  She wanted to run into town to tell them about the man she had met and what He said.  She was full of joy and excitement.  She had recognized her need, seen the fulfillment of that need in Christ, said “yes!” in her heart, and was ready to share the news!  That’s what true worship does.  It changes us, empowers us, fills us with wonder and joy, and makes us want to share what (and Who!) we have known and experienced with others.  When we see God for Who He really is, the transformation that occurs as a result of that encounter with the living God is a part of why worship is so important for me, for you, and for every Christian.

Here are some truths about worship and some practical helps for understanding your role as a worshipper.

Key B:   UNDERSTANDING  WORSHIP  BEGINS
WITH  UNDERSTANDING  WHO  GOD  REALLY  IS.
Worship is not some mystical activity that only people who have a Doctorate in Theology can understand.  God is revealed to us through His presence, through the Holy Spirit, through His word, and through the blessings and even challenges of life when we are looiking for His hand at work.

Simply stated, our lives, our thoughts, and the attitudes of our hearts matter to God. If we are going to seek to live a life that uplifts and blesses the lives of others and honors our Creator God through purity of purpose and a legacy of lasting (eternal) impact on the world, God knows that we must first be in right relationship with Him. He longs for us to know Him as He knows us. After we have come into relationship with God by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, this is where worship comes into the picture. When we begin to understand who God really is and catch a vision of His infinite love and mercy, our reasonable response to this revelation of truth is…worship.

Remember that God does not desire our worship so that he can become great. He is already great. He does not need to be elected as “Supreme Ruler of the Universe” by all of humanity. He is already the supreme ruler of the universe. God does not desire empty accolades or flowery speeches of devotion. He desires relationship with us.

KEY C:  THE MINDSET OF WORSHIP
We are never closer to the heart of God than when we

* see ourselves and our need for God

at the same time that we

* see who He is (our all-sufficient Creator, Savior, and Sustainer)

and then respond in true worship.

Worship God in Spirit and Truth

KEY D:  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR  WORSHIP

1. JESUS  SAID  THAT  WE  MUST  WORSHIP  “IN  SPIRIT”.
How can that happen?

What do we need in order for relationship with God to happen so that we can worship God in Spirit? First, we need a bridge of salvation from God to man so that we can accept His provision for our spiritual need and allow Him to begin to work in our hearts, minds, and souls. Accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior allows God to begin the process of making us holy so that one day we can dwell with Him (without making Heaven unholy). If we are going to be in relationship with Him while still on earth and in the process of becoming like Christ, we must be given spiritual understanding and spiritual life. To accomplish this, God’s Holy Spirit comes to live within us when we come to know Him. Even a child can understand that Jesus gave His life in order to pay the penalty for our sin. It doesn’t take a college degree to grasp the fact that our salvation is the beginning of a process of becoming like Christ so that we may one day dwell with God in a holy place where none of the consequences of sin can exist. However, we must move on from that beginning point of salvation to learning and growing in the deeper spiritual truths, including our understanding of worship, which we can do with the help of God’s spirit, who leads us into all truth when we are seeking more.

So, God has done the initial work of making our salvation and relationship with Him possible. He has done the important work of helping us to grow in Christ through the indwelling of His Spirit, and He has also done the work of fulfilling the first requirement of true worship through the indwelling.  We can worship God “in Spirit” when we have the Spirit of God living within us after accepting Christ as our Savior (as long as we don’t allow sin or the concerns of the world to drown out the still, small voice of God’s spirit).  Remember what Jesus said.  God is Spirit, and when we worship Him “in Spirit”, we are connecting spiritually in a unique way.  Father God who sustains us and who has provided a a way of salvation throught Jesus, God the Son, responds to the Spirit of God within us.

2. JESUS  SAID  THAT  WE  MUST  WORSHIP  “IN  TRUTH”.
True worship comes with surrender and getting real.

What about the “in truth” requirement for worship?  What does that mean?

First, as we come to an understanding of who God is and His characteristics as the Creator and Lord of all, at some point we learn that God knows all and that He looks upon our hearts. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows us more intimately than anyone else ever could. He knows our fears, our failures, our sorrows, our sin, our hopes, our loves, and our priorities. He knows what we worship. Our job is to get real with Him.  We must come to realize that faking spiritual life or pretending to surrender to God or acting the part of a genuine worshipper will never be enough for true relationship with Him.

If we say that we worship God and yet devote most of our energy and thoughts to something else (even to all of the busy-ness of serving God that we sometimes allow to become a substitute for knowing and worshipping Him), God knows it. He does not want us to have divided hearts, and He longs for us to be spared the eventual pain that comes with focusing our lives too much on temporary pleasures or things or human relationships without seeking Him first. Since He knows our hearts and fully understands our spiritual struggles, it does no good to try to fool God with a “show” of worship. He is not fooled. We are only fooling ourselves, and we are falling into the trap of settling for less of God than He wants to give.

All to Jesus I surrender…

Secondly, we need to realize what God’s true nature is in relation to us, His children.  Jesus said that God is a giver who desires to give good gifts to His children. (Matthew 7:11)  We can never out-give God, and yet we try to hold part of ourselves back from relationship to Him, thinking that we don’t want to lose our identity. However, it is only when we are able to let go and give ourselves fully to God that He can show us what abundant life means.  He can then show us our true identity in Him (who He made us to be).  When we begin to understand the revelation of what God will do through us as we surrender to Him, we can begin the process of fully becoming every part of the whole of our true identity.  This is why Jesus said that He that tries to keep his life will lose it. While we won’t lose our salvation if we never fully surrender to God, we will lose the eternal impact that our lives were meant to have. We will lose the fullest meaning and purpose that our lives could have had. We will also lose out on abundant life.

Thirdly, we have to get real.  It is only when we are willing to be real and honest with God (and even tell Him about our struggles to surrender fully to Him) that He can begin to work with the truth that we have accepted about ourselves and begin to teach us the joys of a life that is being transformed from the inside out. When we trust God with the truth (that He already knows) and come to Him with real desire to move forward in becoming like Christ, even though we know that we have a long way to go in that journey, that desire to bring God glory with our lives by becoming more like Christ is true worship. Our lives become the intentional expression of our desire to bring God glory through recognizing His infinite worth.* We then choose to allow God to fill us with His spiritual life as we continually surrender our mess to Him. That process is living Romans 12:1-2, our reasonable service of worship. That is living in an authentic relationship with God, worshipping Him in truth, as we continue to give Him our mess and allow Him to make our lives a message of God’s glory through a transformed life.

Romans 12

New International Version (NIV)

A Living Sacrifice

12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

KEY E:  GOD  AND  JESUS  LEAD  THE  WAY  IN  SACRIFICIAL  GIVING

Remember these truths:

God is not asking us to do anything that He himself has not already done! 
He gave Himself. 

At a time when we were all takers, He gave.
We continue to take, and He continues to give.

Only true worship breaks the “cycle of taking” in our lives,
As we seek to give Him glory in all of life through living a life of worship.

Restating and expanding upon Key E:
When we worship God, we become part of an endless (eternal) cycle of giving which God began, which He continues in every moment, which He will continue throughout eternity, and of which He is always a part.  (even when we are not in giving mode)

(i)  God began the giving.

1 Peter 1:20
“He (Jesus) was chosen (as our Redeemer, whose live would be given for all) before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”

John 3;16 (NLT)  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

(ii)  God continues to give in every moment of time.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  – James 1:17
(Note that God’s nature is that of a giver and that He does not change!)

22The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. 23They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.”…  – Lamentations 3:22 – 24

(iii)  God will continue giving throughout all eternity.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”  – I Corinthians 2:9

“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”  – Revelation 21:23

(iv)  God is always a part of an eternal cycle of giving. 

“If you then, imperfect as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”  – Matthew 7:11 (WNT)

Therefore…

Key F:  WORSHIP  IS  ABOUT  GIVING  OURSELVES  TO  A  LOVING  GOD  WHO  HAS  GIVEN  HIMSELF  FOR  US  AND  WILL  CONTINUE  TO  GIVE  THROUGHOUT  ALL  OF  ETERNITY.

Many people don’t realize that the pervasive attitude of consumerism in society has leached into our mindsets about worship.  If we view worship as something that should be done only on Sundays and only during a corporate worship service, we have not understood the concept of lifestyle worship (worshiping God through the way that we live our lives by seeking to give Him glory in all that we do and all that we are becoming).  If we view worship from the standpoint of how much we are “getting out of it”, then we misunderstand worship completely.  Worship is not about the occasional obligatory 25 minutes of singing that some just endure during a church worship service.  Worship is also not about consuming a commodity.  It is not a cheeseburger or a steak.  It is not about your musical preferences or mine.  It is not about seeing and being seen.  Worship is not something that we do in order to check all of the spiritual boxes.

Instead, worship can become our natural state of being as we learn more and more about our merciful God, our victorious Savior, and our ever-present guide and helper, God’s indwelling and holy Spirit (then choosing to respond to all that He is with all that we are).

THE  KEY  TRUTH:  Worship is about giving.

Giving in daily life…

Lift up His name!

If we understand that worship is about giving, we can choose to live with an attitude of true worship (though none of us can accomplish it perfectly in this life).  We can seek to continually express God’s infinite worth* through living in such a way that every part of our lives ultimately brings Him glory.  This is something that we cannot do in our own strength.  In order to continue the process of becoming like Christ as we seek to live a live that brings God glory, we need God’s help in many ways.  He gives us guidance and strength through His word, through His presence, and through dwelling within us in Spirit.  Even as we are sseking to give worship to God through living “as unto the Lord and not unto men”,  He continues to give! 

Living in an attitude of worship, presenting our selves unto the Lord as a living sacrifice, is our “reasonable service of worship”.  (Romans 12:1 & 2) 

To state this truth in another way.  because of all that God has done, is continuing to do, and will do throughout all of eternity, we choose moment by moment to live in such a way that our lives bring glory to God, even in the small, everyday things.

“Whatever you are doing, let your hearts be in your work, as a thing done for the Lord and not for men.”  –  Colossians 3:23  (Weymouth New Testament)

“And serve them with all your soul in love, as unto our Lord and not as unto men,”  – Ephesians 6:7  (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

“Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  – I Corinthians 10:31  NASB

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  – Colossians 3:17

“If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”  I Peter 4:11

Giving in times of corporate worship…

Worship from the heart

If we understand that worship is about giving, then we can come to a corporate worship service with a heart that is ready to give!  Whether things in our lives seem to be going well or whether we are struggling or dealing with many trials, the fact remains that both a private worship time and times of corporate worship are about giving.  Even when the cares of life are weighing us down, we can be honest in prayer and tell God that we are feeling drained and exhausted and worn to a frazzle.  He already knows everything we are facing and everything we are feeling anyway, so we are simply coming into agreement with the truth when we admit our status before Him.  Then, we can choose to give the sacrifice of praise by making a symbolic mental, emotional, and spiritual exchange.  We give our burdens to God and exchange the spirit of heaviness that had been pressing the life right out of us for that lovely garment of praise.

When we lift up the Lord, He lifts us up, too!  We can never out-give God because He is constantly giving more and more.  There will always be an infinite number of reasons to praise Him.  When we come into a time of corporate worship ready to give the Lord praise, honor, exaltation, blessing, surrender, our lives and hearts, our focus, our struggles, our longings, and our raw need for God and for all that He is to be reflected in our lives, He will meet us right where we are and complete the cirlcle of giving (of which He is always a part).

WHAT  ARE  WE  SUPPOSED  TO  GIVE?

1.  We are to give God THANKSGIVING and PRAISE!

* Psalm 100:4   ”Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.”

* Psalm 9:1 & 2   “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart: I will tell of all Thy wonderful deeds.  I will be glad and exult in Thee, I will sing praise to Thy name, O Most High.”

2.  We are to give God GLORY!

(or, glorify Him)

* Psalm 86:12   “With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God. I will give glory to your name forever.”

* Psalm 96:6 – 9   “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.  Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”

3.  We are to give God AWE and REVERENCE, acknowledging Him as the Lord and Creator of all.

(In some verses and some translations, “the fear of the Lord”)

* Psalm 111:10   “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”

* Psalm 86:9 – 12   “All the nations You have made shall come and bow down before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name.  For You are great, and You do wondrous things; You alone are God.  Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.  I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Your name forever.”

4.  We are to give God BLESSING.  (Bless the Lord, bless the name of the Lord)

* Psalm 103:22   ”Bless the LORD, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Bless the LORD, O my soul!”

* Psalm 28:6 & 7   “Blessed be the Lord!  for He has heard the voice of my supplications.  The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts; so I am helped and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”

5.  We are to give Him EXALTATION!*  (or exalt Him, exalt His name)

From the www.thefreedictionary.com, here are the applicable definitions:

1. to raise or elevate in rank, position, dignity, etc.

2. to praise highly; glorify; extol

* Psalm 34:3   “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

*NOTE:  The word ‘exaltation’ sometimes gets confused with ‘exultation’, for which the definition is “to rejoice greatly, be jubilant or triumphant (or, as in triumph.  We rejoice greatly in His triumph.)  — same source

6.  We are to give Him SERVICE!
(giving of our hearts, our time, our gifts, and our lives in serving Him)

* Joshua 24:15   ”If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

7.  We are to give Him WORSHIP!
True worship rises up from the people of God, who are choosing to intentionally express His infinite worth! **

**(see note at end of post)

You have probably noticed by now that there is some overlap in the various types of giving to the Lord.  For example, in singing praise to God, we can bless His name.  In the worship category of giving, there is overlap with all other types of giving.  All of these ways of giving to the Lord are worship (lifestyle worship) when we are giving with the purpose of bringing glory to God and expressing His infinite worth through giving our best to God in every area of our lives.

* Psalm 29:2   ”Honor the LORD for the glory of His name. Worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness.”

* Phillippians 3:3   “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

8.  We are to give Him our songs (SING UNTO HIM)!

* Psalm 5:11   ”But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.”

* Psalm 30:4   “Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.”

* Psalm 59:16 & 17   “I will sing of Thy power; yes, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  Unto Thee, O my Strength, will I sing; for God is my defense , and the God of my mercy.”   Psalm 59:16 & 17“I will sing of Thy power; yes, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  Unto Thee, O my Strength, will I sing; for God is my defense , and the God of my mercy.”

9.  We are to give Him TITHES and OFFERINGS!

* Malachi 3:10   “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

* Exodus 35:29  “The children of Israel brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah, every man and woman whose heart prompted them to bring for all manner of work, which Jehovah, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.”

10.  We are to give Him HONOR!

* Revelation 4:11   “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

* Psalm 96:6 – 9   “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.  Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”

* Proverbs 3:9   “Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first and best part of all your income.”

Just as we would honor a guest in our home by seeking to serve our best meal and prepare diligently so that all will be able to enjoy the best time of fellowship, we choose to give unto the Lord the best of all that we are and all that we have for His honor.   We honor the Lord by giving, just as He has chosen to honor us by seeking fellowship with us and reaching out to us through the gift of His very best.

11.  We are to give Him LOVE!

The words of Jesus Himself in Mark 12:30   “AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.”

* Psalm 31:23   “Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.”

* Joshua 22:5   “But be very careful to obey all the commands and the instructions that Moses gave to you. Love the LORD your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”

* Psalm 116:1   “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.”

12.  We are to give Him OUR WHOLE HEART AND LIFE!

* I Chronicles 28:9   “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

* Mark 8:35   “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”

The Final KEY TRUTH:

 THERE  IS  NO  SUBSTITUTE  FOR  CORPORATE  WORSHIP  WITH  GOD’S  PEOPLE.

It is wonderful to have a personal understanding of worship that aligns with what scripture teaches, and it is vitally important that every Christian also begins to follow through and move forward from having knowledge about worship to actually putting into practice the truths that we have learned.  In other words, each of us must begin to view ourselves as not only a child of God, servant of God, and disciple of Christ but also as a worshipper.  The Bible tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  Through worship, we are seeking more than just answered prayers and strength or comfort.  We are actually seeking to bless the heart of God with our own desire to give Him glory.  In choosing to live all of life with an attitude of worship, we are seeking to choose in every moment to do, say, and think in a God-honoring way.  Again, we will fall short, but our effort and our heart for God will not escape His notice.  He will meet with us in those moments of focused worship, and He will bless our efforts to bring Him glory through living in an attitude of worship.

Personal worship and living a lifestyle of worship are wonderful and essential to the life of every growing Christian, but those two elements of growth as a worshipper are not enough without regular corporate worship times with your church family.  Times of worship with the body of Christ are essential for the body and for the individuals who make up the body.  Here is what the Bible says about our need for corporate worship:

“We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming.”  – Hebrews 10:25 (God’s Word translation)

Seeing the scripture within the context of other verses, consider the application for such a time as this:

A Call to Persevere
…23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.…

Restated:  In order to persevere in our faith, we must not waver in our commitment to be a part of the body of Christ and to worship with the body of Christ.  We must hold on with all of our might to the certain hope we have been given, recognizing God’s faithfulness in keeping His promises.  We must encourage one another and work together to love each other within the church fellowship and to demonstrate the love of Christ to the world.  We must serve together, doing what is good in helping others both inside and outside of the church, in the name of Jesus.  We must learn and grow spiritually through the process of study and sharing testimonies of God’s faithfulness and proclamation of the Word.

And, we should remember that all of these things (corporate worship and all of the loving, serving, discipleship, and fellowship through the body) that can only be done by continuing to meet, worship, fellowship, and serve together as a body become even more important as time moves closer and closer to the return of Christ.

You and I cannot be who we need to be as Christians if we forsake meeting togther. 

If we are going to live in a way that honors and reverences the blood of Christ which sanctifies us, the passage goes on to say, we must demonstrate our love and commitment to the Lord through loving His body, the church, and meeting together with other believers for the primary purpose of worship and for discipleship, fellowship, outreach / missions, and service.  Verse 26 even refers back to the mention of forsaking meeting together and calls such practice “deliberate sin’, going on to talk about God’s judgement for those who have “spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the convenant, and outraged the Spirit of Grace” (vs. 29).  God does not take it lightly when those who know Him (and whom Jesus died to save) reject His body, the church.

Remember that we (Christians who make up the body of Christ) are all in the process of growing to be more Christlike, and we are all in different stages of spiritual growth.  Sometimes other Christians will disappoint or even hurt us.  We need to extend the same grace that we have been given to our fellow believers.  They may not have yet reached the point of conviction about something that they have done or are doing that is wrong or has been hurtful (sometimes unintentionally) to the body.  However, we can choose to demonstrate the love of Christ and the grace and mercy of God to them, knowing that love always hopes, always believes, and always trusts.  You may not be able to trust an individual, but you can trust the God who is at work in your heart and in theirs.

We are a family of brothers and sisters in Christ, and the same principles of forgiveness, moving forward, and talking through problems that you follow with your own family must also be followed with your spiritual family.  This is one of the ways that we encourage one another to good works (one of the reasons given for not forsaking the assembling together of God’s family).  Forgiveness and reconciliation, resulting in spiritual growth for both parties and in greater harmony within the body, are good works!   Don’t allow your “right” to nurse a grudge or hang on to a hurt or misunderstanding to cause you to sin against the blood of Christ.

Remember, there is no substitute for worshipping together with other believers.

May God bless you as you seek to worship Him both personally and corporately, living a life that brings Him glory and discovering that relating to God as a 24/7 worshipper is the missing piece that you have longed to find.

Colossians 1:10   “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.”

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* John Piper’s definition of worship. paraphrased.
This definition is found in the devotion titled  ”Bodies, Breakfast, and the Marriage Bed”  and subtitled  “A Meditation on Daily Worship”.
You can read the complete devotion at this link:  http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/bodies-breakfast-and-the-marriage-bed

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This post was written by Cynthia A. Boyd

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You may want to read some of our other posts and pages about worship:

OUR OTHER POSTS ABOUT WORSHIP: (Our pages, like the one on Lifestyle Worship, have titles that are always visible on the blog header.  Our posts are categorized, and all of the posts on worship can be found in our category called “Worship…with Wonder!”

Music is a gift…Worship the Giver!

Worship:  Definitions and Quotations

Worship…it’s all about Giving!

Worship in the New Testament

Understanding Worship

Worship is Joy!

Worship Planning and Preparation

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For further reading, here is a link to an article called,

“What is Worship?
A Survey of Scripture”

http://www.gci.org/God/worship

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Do you know someone who is looking for answers?

Thank you for spending your valuable time reading the contents of this page.  We hope that it has been helpful to you.   If you or someone that you know is looking for answers about life, we hope that you will visit our page called “Do You Know Jesus?”.   The links provided on this page will help to answer life’s deepest questions.   Here is the link to “Do You Know Jesus?”:  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

Please feel free to share this URL with anyone who is looking for answers about life and eternity.

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Psalm 100: A Prescription for Praise!

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord is God; it is He that has made us and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good: His mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.”

~   Psalm 100 (all verses, 1 – 5)

I love Psalm 100!

These 5 short verses are a prescription for a life of thanksgiving and praise!

Within these verses, we find the “why” of praise.

Why do we praise God?

* 1 *  Because He is good  (verse 5)

* 2 *  Because His mercy is everlasting   (verse 5 ~ some translations use “steadfast love”)

* 3 *  Because His truth endures to all generations   (v. 5 ~ some versions say “faithfulness”)

* 4 *  Because we are His people   (v. 3)

* 5 *  Because He is like a Shepherd to us   (v. 3 ~ He cares for our needs since we are the sheep of His pasture.)

* 6 *  Because the pasture is His   (v. 3 ~ We dwell within His creation, another provision.)

* 7 *  Because He is God   (v.3)

* 8 *  Because He made us   (v. 3)

* 9 *  Because anything we have as far as abilities and gifts (anything good within us) came from Him  (v. 3 ~ We didn’t make ourselves.)

* 10 *  Because He allows us to come into His presence   (v. 4 ~ We can enter His gates, His courts.)

* 11 *  Because He wants to be in relationship and fellowship with us, He gives us the keys to His presence.   (v. 4 He tells us that thanksgiving and praise are the outer and inner gateways to communion with Him.)

* 12 *  Because He wants us to be glad and to be joyful, to have hearts that sing.   (v. 1 & 2 ~ He even wants to hear and share in our joy!)

Did you see those 12 reasons for praise in the 5 verses of Psalm 100 before?  I have read this Psalm hundreds of times in the 35 years since I became a Christian, but I don’t think I saw all of the reasons for praise until I started looking for them.

Isn’t it amazing that our God is so good that we can find 12 reasons for praising Him in only 5 short verses of scripture.  He is amazing!  THAT’S WHY WE PRAISE HIM!

The Lord is great, He is Sovereign, He is personal, He is a loving and caring Shepherd, He claims us as His own, He wants us to know Him, He is a God of truth, He is merciful (FULL of mercy), He is a giver, He is generous (desiring our joy!), He has our best interests at heart, and He is powerful.

He is God.

Knowing the 5 verses of Psalm 100 can be a lifelong reminder of the reasons to praise Him. There’s something else in these verses as well. We not only have the “why” of praise in Psalm 100. We also have the “how”.

So, how are we to praise the Lord?

* with a joyful noise (v. 1)
* with glad hearts as we serve Him (v. 2)
* with singing (v. 2)
* with the reverent recognition of who He is (v. 3)
* with thanksgiving (v. 4)
* with blessing for His name (v. 4)
* with knowledge that praise is the password to His presence (v. 4)
* with the desire to go deeper in seeking and knowing Him (also v. 4, drawing near as we come into his courts)

Finally, we find that remembering the how and why of praise found in Psalm 100 can help us to live in fellowship with the Lord as we continually look for more reasons to give Him praise and seek to live our lives for His glory.  

There are many benefits to living a life of praise, because praise is good medicine!

Unlike prescriptions for medication, praise has no harmful side effects. The benefits of praise are spiritual, emotional, mental, and even physical.

Here are 10 of the benefits of praise:

* Praise focuses our attention on the eternal and causes us to let go of our earthly concerns for a while.

* Praise reminds us why we love and trust our great God. It reminds us who He is.

* Praise helps us to remember that God’s salvation goes beyond meeting our greatest need (for Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior) to meeting our everyday needs through all of the ways that God shepherds and cares for us and helps us to grow in grace.

* When we praise the Lord specifically for all that He is and all that He has done, we are confronted with God’s sovereignty, Jesus’ glory as the only begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit’s comfort and guidance.

* Praise brings peace to our hearts because it reminds us that He is our peace.

* Praise makes us glad as we remember that He is the joy of every longing heart.

* Praise gives us eternal perspective and helps us hold on to faith in God, even when things don’t seem to make sense.

* Praise allows God to meet us where we are and minister to us at the point of our deepest need.

* Praise takes our eyes off of ourselves and focuses them on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

* Praise allows us to give something of eternal value to the Giver of all things. We can give something of eternal value only because God invested Himself in us when He chose to die for us. He can redeem us through the power of His great love and make us into eternal beings who will see His glory and become worthy of His presence through the shedding of His own blood. He gives value to our weakest effort. His strength is perfected in our human weakness. As we praise Him, we recognize and affirm His infinite worth and supreme glory as the God of all creation. He, in turn, lifts us up with the knowledge that He cares for us and values our lives, our souls, and even our human efforts to live in such a way that our lives bring Him glory.

With results like that, this prescription for praise should be administered daily!

See the information below about our most often read blog post, 31 Days of Praise, to give you a full month of praise scripture devotions.

Below, you will find a memorization helper photo for Psalm 100.  Print it in whatever size works for you, and use it as a memory aide to help you learn the 5 incredible verses of Psalm 100.

Use this scripture memory photo for the 5 verses of Psalm 100 to read it aloud each day and memorize this passage

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31  DAYS OF PRAISE  

This blog post originally was (and still is) the praise devotion for day 17 in our “31 Days of Praise” blog post (see link below).

Most of the devotions consist of a praise verse, a truth about praise drawn from that verse, and a short, devotional paragraph with thoughts about praise inspired by that verse.  However, this particular devotion is longer…quite a bit longer.  It is the only long-ish devotion in “31 Days of Praise” because there’s just so much in Psalm 100.  The more I looked, the more I found, and the more there was to share about this passage of scripture and our great God.  With this much to share, I decided after I published the 31 devotions that this particular devotion needed to become a separate post as well.  Psalm 100 is even more special to me now that the Lord has revealed so much about it and about Himself through it.  We hope that this post will be a blessing.  Don’t forget to check out “31 Days of Praise” for 30 short devotions about praise + one that is a little long-ish.

Here’s the link to   31 Days of Praise

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This post was written by Cynthia A. Boyd.
This post can be reprinted in an unpaid church publication as long as the author’s name and blog URL are included.  It does need to be printed in its entirety.  We stand by each post on our blog, so we require that no edits be made.  Even the tiniest edit might alter the meaning or original intent of a post.  For a paid publication, obtaining permission is required.

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Do you know someone who is looking for answers?

Thank you for spending your valuable time reading the contents of this page.  We hope that it has been helpful to you.   If you or someone that you know is looking for answers about life, we hope that you will visit our page called “Do You Know Jesus?”.   The links provided on this page will help to answer life’s deepest questions.   Here is the link to “Do You Know Jesus?”:  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

Please feel free to share this URL with anyone who is looking for answers about life and eternity.

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Lifting Up His Name!

Psalm 107:8

“I will give to the Lord the thanks due to His righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” Psalm 7:17

What does is really mean to praise the name of the Lord?  In order to praise Him in Spirit and in truth, we must have some knowledge about Who He is.  In other words, we must know the truth about God to some extent in order to be able to offer genuine praise that flows from a heart of gratittude.  In the scripture verse above, the Psalmist acknowledges the righteousness of God, His Lordship, and the fact that He is the Most High God, Lord over all.  The thankful heart of the Psalmist results from knowing that God is good.  He is righteous.  He is the Most High.  As a result of this knowledge and relationship, the Psalmist feels that he has an obligation to respond appropriately to God’s goodness and supremacy.   The Psalmist gives thanks to the Lord and sings praise to His Name based upon revealed truth and what that truth means to him.

Similarly, a child reaches a point when he has grown up enough to recognize the sacrifices his parents are making and have made on him behalf, resulting in his desire to thank his parents and to be good to them in turn.   We are part of our biological or adopted family, the children of our earthly parents.  We carry their name and their hopes and dreams, as well as their investment into our lives, for the remainder of our years.  With maturity comes the acknowledgement that everything about the way the we live impacts all of those around us.     We praise our parents and others who have had an impact on our lives not just for what they have done on our behalf but for who they are and the fact that they truly love us and have our best interests at heart.  Our lives bear the fruit and the image of their sacrifice.

In thinking about our lives in relationship to God, the fact that He desires relationship with us is amazing!   The fact that He is good and acts on our behalf is fantastic!  The fact that He would give Himself for us is miraculously magnificent!  What should be our response ot such an awesome, loving, and merciful God?  Consider the worship quote below.

Worship quote:

“Worship is discovering and declaring the magnificence of God, not just by our image-bearing and not just in sacramental acts, but the way we breathe every breath, take in every sight, hear every sound, and move as image-bearers through every day.”

( The quote above is from http://marshill.com/2011/04/17/what-worship-is )

The term “image bearers” in the worship quote above is a reminder to me of the true meaning of one of the Ten Commandments. When preparing to teach a Sunday School lesson several years ago, I learned that the definition of the word that has been translated as “take” in the commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” is “to bear or to carry.” This expanded my understanding of what God was telling us to do and not to do in a way that is more profound than the very true teaching that we must have reverence for God’s name and only use His name in a way that is honorable. In addition, we are the carriers of His name. We take, or bear, or carry, the name of God with us wherever we are as Christians. So, the commandment is telling us to be very aware of our witness and testimony, making sure that we do not bring shame or reproach to the name of God through our actions, words, or attitudes. To do so would be to carry His name in vain because of the fact that all of our efforts for the Kingdom would not bear fruit as they should in the lives of others. If we have compromised our testimony to such a great extent that our efforts are in vain, this is a very serious situation; but I believe that it does not have to be a permanent one. God’s forgiveness and mercy are always there for us. Every day is a new beginning.  God’s infinite investment of love and mercy in our lives is worthy of our best image-bearing (carrying His name in such a way that our lives bring Him glory).  Today, with God’s help, may we carrry His name and the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in such a way that His glory is seen, not only in our best efforts, but even in our imperfection that has been surrendered to Him. That is worship, dear friends.

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–  This post was written by C. Boyd

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The worship scriptures used in this post can be found on our Worship Scripture Page called “Lift Your Voice” at http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/lift-your-voice/

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The worship quote used in this posts can be found in our post called “Worship:  Definitions and Quotations” at this link:  WORSHIP:  Definitions and Quotations

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Do you know someone who is looking for answers?

Thank you for spending your valuable time reading this devotional post.  We hope that it has been helpful to you.   If you or someone that you know is looking for answers about life, we hope that you will visit our page called “Do You Know Jesus?”.   The links provided on this page will help to answer life’s deepest questions.   Here is the link to “Do You Know Jesus?”:  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

Please feel free to share this URL with anyone who is looking for answers about life and eternity.

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Music is a gift…Worship the Giver!

Music is a gift…Worship the Giver!

The picture of a musician bowing at the cross with his guitar is a reminder to us.  God gives gifts and abilities, but our lives are never about these gifts.  We can enjoy them, and we can use them for God’s glory; but what counts in our lives is ultimately that which cannot be seen.  God looks upon our hearts.  He knows our desires, our priorities, our needs, our hurts, our struggles, and our focus.  He knows how much we truly love Him and desire to give Him glory.  He knows our moments of purest devotion and the moments when we can’t seem to keep our minds from wandering.  He knows how much our God-given gifts and talents can become a part of what we and others view as our identitiy.  But, once again, when God looks at us, He just sees our hearts.  He could have chosen any gift or ability to give to us.  Would our fundamental identity have been changed if he had given us a different set of abilities?  What if we lose our abilities at some point in life?  Does God see us as less valuable or less able to bring Him glory?

God is the giver.  In His wisdom, He chooses to give gifts, talents, and abilities to each person He has formed within the womb.  He chooses the person…He chooses the gifts….He chooses our time and place.  The very fact that God chooses all of these things makes them important.  He has invested Himself in each of us as He was creating and forming who we would be.  And yet, the Bible makes it clear that the most important thing that God sees when He looks upon us is our hearts.

It is good to use the gifts and talents God gives.  He wants us to use them and even expects it.  He wants us to develop our skills and abilities and to become the best we can be.  He wants us to experience joy and delight in using our gifts and in the journey toward using them with skill and excellence.  However, in all of our striving, let us never forget that He sees our hearts.  In Him, there is the freedom to let go of the results of our efforts.  Ribbons and trophies, certificates and compliments, honors and publicity…. these are all the fleeting types of recognition that we give to one another to recognize a job well done.  None of them matters as much as knowing that we have done our absolute best to honor God.  We were not in control of which gifts we were given, but we can give them back to Him by surrendering them to His care.  Just as Jesus surrendered His earthly life, we can allow God to make our lives (including the moments that we have honored God in using the gifts that we have been given) have eternal significance by giving them back to him in daily surrender.   If we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and do our best with the gifts we have been given, we are fulfilling Gods’ purpose in a way that far exceeds any earthly accolades.

In addition to the gifts, talents, and abilities we receive from the Lord, there is a very important element that should be present in our lives in order to allow us to use what God has given us.  This crucial element is passion!  There are people who could be phenomenal athletes, singers, poets, writers, artists, musicians, business owners, teachers, politicians, or whatever.  However, if an individual does not possess a passion for a field of endeavor, they will never do much more than dabble in it.  For example, there are people who are sitting in the pews of every church who could really be an asset as a teacher, serving on a committee, or serving in worship ministry.  However, they either are going through a season of life that prevents their service (such as caring for a loved one who is ill), or they have not yet deepened their relationship with the Lord enough to see the need for serving Him through their church, or they are specifically called to service in a para-church organization, such as a ministry to battered women, or they simply do not have the passion for a particular area of ministry that would be called for in order to maintain a commitment to serve. 

It is very important that Christians who serve and seek to bring glory to God in any kind of ministry or in any vocation first have a sense of calling to that vocation or ministry area.  Secondly, individuals who seek to glorify God through their lives and their service must have a knowledge that God has equipped them in some way through the giving of gifts and talents, which they have then developed through study, practice, the investment of their time, and taking advantage of growth opportunities such as classes, conferences and mentorship.  Finally, the third requirement for lifestyle service and ministry is to have a deep sense of passion and commitment to excellence as well as faithfulness in that area of service or career.  For many people, the passion is not the problem.  Passion is definitely present in their lives for the areas in which they feel they have been gifted for a vocational or ministry calling.  Passion is a wonderful and necessary element in using our gifts, talents, and abilities.  However, we must remember that the key to balance and to keeping a proper perspective is the knowledge that the most important thing is always what is in our hearts.  Gifts, talents, abilities, a sense of calling, and a passion for excellence in serving are all blessings from God; but they are not what God values most.   With whatever we have been given, we must love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and seek to honor and bring glory to Him. 

Be thankful for the gifts, and worship the Giver!

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”   James 1:17

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.”   John 3:16

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Post written by C. Boyd

Note:  If this post seems familiar,  you may have seen it posted as a featured article on The Worship Community .com (filed in their “Worship Leadership” category).  It can be found there at this link:
http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/music-is-a-gift-worship-the-giver/

The article can also be found on the Worship the Rock website (worship leader forum and social network) on Travis L. Boyd’s blog, along with several other re-blogged posts from our Worshp Sounds Music blog.
http://www.worshiptherock.com/profiles/blogs/music-is-a-gift-worship-the-giver

The post was also recommended in “Weekend Links” by Worship Links in October of 2014.
http://www.worshiplinks.us/2014/10/weekend-links-80/

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ADDITIONAL POSTS ABOUT WORSHIP:

Worship:  Definitions and Quotations

Worship…it’s all about Giving!

Worship in the New Testament

Understanding Worship

Worship is Joy!

Worship Planning and Preparation

Worship ABC’s

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Do you know Jesus?

The decision to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life as your Lord and Savior is the best decision you could ever make!  The one true God is ready to give you forgiveness and eternal life as soon as you understand your need for Him and believe on the name of His only Son, Jesus, for your salvation.  Here’s a blog page link to help you find the answers to your questions about Jesus.  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

WORSHIP: Definitions and Quotations

Worship is “transcendent wonder.”

-Thomas Carlyle

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“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”   Hebrews 12:28, NIV

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This post contains Scriptures about worship

as well as 67 quotes, definitions, or teachings about worship

from the sources noted.

In addition, there are 3 Dictionary or Bible Dictionary definitions of worship.

Several links to other worship resources can also be found here.

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For a lengthy resource on worship-related Scriptures

from both the Old and New Testaments,

see our page entitled,
“Lift Your Voice (Worship Scriptures)”

@ http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/lift-your-voice

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Worship is discovering and declaring the magnificence of God, not just by our image-bearing and not just in sacramental acts, but the way we breathe every breath, take in every sight, hear every sound, and move as image-bearers through every day.

–  from http://marshill.com/2011/04/17/what-worship-is

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NOTE

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Additional information about the above quotation (shared by the authors of this blog):

*
The “image bearing” term likely refers to the fact that we (human beings) are created in the image of God, according to Genesis 1:26.
Here is another scripture referring to our “image bearing”:

*

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.  ~  II Corinthians 3:17 – 18*
* Some translations of this scripture use the word “likeness”.

*

In addition, it is made clear in the passages below that, for Christians, also being bearers of His image spiritually makes us bearers of His glory.  (What an amazing truth!)
The god of this age (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  ~  II Corinthians 4:4
*

(Jesus praying for believers)  22 The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  ~  John 17:22 – 23
*

Did you know that the word translated “take” in the 10 Commandments has deeper meaning than just “use” or “say”? (You shall not take the name the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.  ~  Exodus 20:7)

*
Here’s some insight on the word “take” used in Genesis 20:7:

Take, throughout the Old Testament, is translated into English from seventy-four different Hebrew words. This one means “to lift up,” “bear,” “carry,” “use,” and “appropriate.”

Source:  http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/bible.show/sVerseID/2059/eVerseID/2059

*

In other words, I believe that we, as Christians, carry, bear, or take the name of the Lord with us wherever we go.  We are not only bearing His image and His glory but also His name.  And we are to bear His name in such a way that even carrying His name is reverent, worshipful, and bears fruit for HIs Kingdom.

*

How can we fail to live in a spirit of worship for our magnificent, incredible God, who has allowed us to bear His image as the very glory of Christ.  Wow.

–  C. Boyd

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Worship is not a moment or a song.  It’s a life of seeking to become the person God made you to be.

…Your job and my job is to worship God, and the way to do that is to find out what God made you for and do everything you can to do that thing, or those things as well as you possibly can for God’s glory.
“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  1 Corinthians 10:31  New Living Translation (©2007)
The sooner you recognize God in everything you do, the sooner you will be able to worship Him in everything you do.  And that will be the best life you could ever imagine.  Not my word, but God’s!

– Will Norman, from  http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/worship–more-than-a-song-will-norman-sermon-on-worship-definition-89290.asp

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Definitions of the word worship from 3 sources:

wor·ship

/ˈwɜrʃɪp/worship/ [wur-ship]: noun, verb; -shiped, -ship·ing or ( especially British ) -shipped, -ship·ping.

As a noun

1.  reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

2.  formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage: They attended worship this morning.

3.  adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of business success.

4.  the object of adoring reverence or regard.

5.  ( initial capital letter ) British . a title of honor used in addressing or mentioning certain magistrates and others of high rank or station (usually preceded by Your, His, or Her ).

As an adverb (used with object)

6.  to render religious reverence and homage to.

7.  to feel an adoring reverence or regard for (any person or thing).

As a verb (used without object)

8.  to render religious reverence and homage, as to a deity.

9.  to attend services of divine worship.

10.  to feel an adoring reverence or regard.

Origin: before 900; (noun) Middle English wors ( c ) hipe, worthssipe, Old English worthscipe, variant of weorthscipe; see worth, -ship; (v.) Middle English, derivative of the noun

Related forms

wor·ship·er, noun; wor·ship·ing·ly, adverb

mis·wor·ship, verb, -shiped, -ship·ing or ( especially British ) -shipped, -ship·ping.

Synonyms: honor, homage, adoration, idolatry. honor, venerate, revere, adore, glorify, idolize, adulate.

– Definition source #1, above, from Dictionary.com, Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012

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– Definitiion source #2. below, from the same website with a different dictionary

Collins World English Dictionary

worship (ˈwɜːʃɪp)
— vb , ( US ) -ships , -shipping , -shipped , -ships , -shiping , -shiped
1.	( tr ) to show profound religious devotion and respect to; adore or venerate (God or any person or thing considered divine)
2.	( tr ) to be devoted to and full of admiration for
3.	( intr ) to have or express feelings of profound adoration
4.	( intr ) to attend services for worship
5.	obsolete ( tr ) to honour
— n
6.	religious adoration or devotion
7.	the formal expression of religious adoration; rites, prayers, etc
8.	admiring love or devotion
9.	archaic dignity or standing
[Old English weorthscipe, from worth 1 +-ship]
‘worshipable
— adj
‘worshipper
— n

Worship (ˈwɜːʃɪp)
— n (preceded by Your, His, or Her )
	chiefly ( Brit ) a title used to address or refer to a mayor, magistrate, or a person of similar high rank

Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition 2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009

‘);

Word Origin & History:

worship

O.E. worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (W.Saxon) “condition of being worthy, honor, renown,” from weorð “worthy”  + -scipe. Sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being” is first recorded

c.1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb is recorded from c.1200.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

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Definition source #3, below, also from Dictionary.com, but from a Bible Dictionary

Easton Bible Dictionary
Worship definition

homage rendered to God which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being (Ex. 34:14; Isa. 2:8). Such worship was refused by Peter (Acts 10:25,26) and by an angel (Rev. 22:8,9).

Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

worship

broadly defined, the response to the appearance of that which is accepted as the holy-that is, to a sacred, transcendent power or being. Characteristic modes of response to the holy include cultic acts of all kinds: ritual drama, prayers of many sorts, dancing, ecstatic speech, veneration of various persons and objects, sermons, silent meditation, and sacred musicand song. Also included in worship are acts of private response: spoken or unspoken prayers, silence, the assumption of particular postures, ritual acts and gestures, and individual acts of veneration of persons or objects.

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** QUOTATIONS ABOUT WORSHIP of the ONE TRUE GOD, AND HIS SON, JESUS CHRIST **

compiled from various sources

Source A, from   http://allaboutworship.com/ *

* Note:  Links provided have been researched, compiled, and added to the respective quotations by C. Boyd for this blog post

“Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does.” -Warren Wiersbe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_W._Wiersbe

“Worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with Him on the terms that He proposes and in the way that He alone makes possible.” -David Peterson  (from this book:  http://www.amazon.com/Engaging-God-Biblical-Theology-Worship/dp/0830826971/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334811456&sr=1-1 )  Also, http://www.davidgpeterson.com

“True worship is when a person, through their person, attains intimacy and friendship with God.” -William Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Temple_(bishop)

“If worship leaders only worship when they lead, they are not worshippers. They are mere musicians.” -Bill Johnson
http://www.bjm.org  (Pastor Johnson’s personal ministry website)

“Depend on it, my hearer, you never will go to heaven unless you are prepared to worship Jesus Christ as God.” -Charles Spurgeon
http://www.spurgeon.org/aboutsp.htm

“Surely that which occupies the total time and energies of heaven must be a fitting pattern for earth.” -Paul E. Billheimer
http://crosslifebooks.com/authors_author.php?authorid=14  (brief author’s biography)

“Worship is the correct response to the presence of God.” -Doug Hanley
Worship leader and composer of worship songs   http://freshsong.tripod.com/music.html

“To worship God is to admit that we are entirely contrary to Him, and that He is willing to make us like Himself.” -Brother Lawrence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Lawrence

“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” -A.W. Tozer
http://www.awtozerclassics.com/page/page/4891818.htm

“Any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.” -A.W. Tozer

“The shortest route to deeper and richer worship is a clearer theology.” -P.D. Manson

Source B,  From http://www.worship.com/

• Louie Giglio: Worship is our response, both personal and corporate, to God for who He is, and what He has done; expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.
• Josh Riley: Worship is everything we think, everything we say, and everything we do, revealing that which we treasure and value most in life.
• John Piper: Worship is what we were created for. This is the final end of all existence-the worship of God. God created the universe so that it would display the worth of His glory. And He created us so that we would see this glory and reflect it by knowing and loving it-with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. The church needs to build a common vision of what worship is and what she is gathering to do on Sunday morning and scattering to do on Monday morning.
• Mark Driscoll: Worship is living our life individually and corporately as continuous living sacrifices to the glory of a person or thing.
• Harold Best: Worship is the sign that in giving myself completely to someone or something, I want to be mastered by it.
• William Temple: Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His Beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.
• David Peterson: Worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible.  David Peterson
• Dan Block: Reverential human acts of submission and homage before the divine Sovereign, in response to his gracious revelation of himself, and in accordance with his will.
• John Stott: Christians believe that true worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man, by the grace of God, is capable.
• A.W. Tozer: To great sections of the church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the ‘program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.
• William Temple: To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.
• William Barclay: The true, the genuine worship is when man, through his spirit, attains to friendship and intimacy with God. True and genuine worship is not to come to a certain place; it is not to go through a certain ritual or liturgy; it is not even to bring certain gifts. True worship is when the spirit, the immortal and invisible part of man, speaks to and meets with God, who is immortal and invisible.
• D. A. Carson: To worship God ‘in spirit and in truth’ is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (Hebrews 8:13). Christian worship is new covenant worship; it is gospel-inspired worship; it is Christ-centered worship; it is cross-focused worship.
• John Frame: Redemption is the means; worship is the goal. In one sense, worship is the whole point of everything. It is the purpose of history, the goal of the whole Christian story. Worship is not one segment of the Christian life among others. Worship is the entire Christian life, seen as a priestly offering to God. And when we meet together as a church, our time of worship is not merely a preliminary to something else; rather, it is the whole point of our existence as the body of Christ.
• John Piper: Strong affections for God, rooted in and shaped by the truth of Scripture – this is the bone and marrow of Biblical worship.

 

NOTE:  A  FREE  “What is Worship?”  READER’S  THEATER  SCRIPT, written by Travis L. Boyd, can be found on our blog at:
https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/what-is-worship-readers-theater-script/

Source C:

Worship Articles by EXW (EXperiencing Worship) Staff March 21, 2011

GREAT QUOTES ON WORSHIP 

“The whole person, with all his senses, with both mind and body, needs to be involved in genuine worship.” Jerry Kerns

“The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance.” C.S. Lewis

“When God’s people begin to praise and worship Him using the Biblical methods He gives, the Power of His presence comes among His people in an even greater measure.” Graham Truscott

“God is to be praised with the voice, and the heart should go therewith in holy exultation.” Charles H. Spurgeon

“Without worship, we go about miserable.” A. W. Tozer

“‘A glimpse of God will save you. To gaze at Him will sanctify you.” Manley Beasley

“We only learn to behave ourselves in the presence of God.” C. S. Lewis

Source D:   http://www.gotquestions.org

Question: “What is true worship?”
Answer: The Apostle Paul described true worship perfectly in Romans 12:1-2: “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable, or well pleasing and perfect.”
This passage contains all the elements of true worship. First, there is the motivation to worship: “the mercies of God.” God’s mercies are everything He has given us that we don’t deserve: eternal love, eternal grace, the Holy Spirit, everlasting peace, eternal joy, saving faith, comfort, strength, wisdom, hope, patience, kindness, honor, glory, righteousness, security, eternal life, forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, sanctification, freedom, intercession and much more. The knowledge and understanding of these incredible gifts motivate us to pour forth praise and thanksgiving—in other words, worship! ………..Worship is to glorify and exalt God – to show loyalty and admiration to our Father. *

* NOTE:  There are additional paragraphs in the response to this question.  For the entire answer to the question “What is True Worship?”, go to http://www.gotquestions.org/trueworship.html

WORSHIP QUOTES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

FROM http://www.higherpraise.com/worship/worship_worshipisalifestyle.htm

Every time you open up your heart in obedience to God and worship Him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, our beautiful Lord responds with His magnificent presence. – Darlene Zschech

Regardless of the method, the act of worship must be in spirit and truth–from our rational consciousness and consistent with the rest of our lives (see John 4:24). We don’t have to be great singers or musicians to worship God. But we do need to be in a personal relationship with Him and live with the truth of His greatness reflecting through all we are becoming and all we do.  – Darlene Zschech, from http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/component/content/article/1490-worship/27159-worship-is-more-than-a-song

We must not convey to the world the impression that the worship of our God is a boring, lifeless ritual. We have been redeemed from sin. Let us therefore praise our Creator as His children who are grateful for His bountiful blessings.
FROM  http://www.gotquestions.org/worship-service.html

Worship means honoring someone that we love. But we can only love someone if we know them in an intimate or personal way. Knowing about a person is different than knowing them personally. As Christians, sometimes we think knowing about God can replace knowing Him intimately through worship.  ~  David Jeremiah, from the book Knowing the God You Worship  http://www.davidjeremiah.org/shop/p-2992-knowing-the-god-you-worship.aspx

“Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he comes in the clouds of heaven.”

– John Wesley, quoted from Select hymns with Tunes Annext: Designed chiefly for the Use of the People Called Methodists

If the pursuit of God’s glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man’s good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the Church, man will not be well served, and God will not be duly honored. I am not pleading for a diminishing of missions but for a magnifying of God. When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the darkest peoples on earth. And I long for that day to come!
–   John Piper, in an article from Decision magazine   http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=771

Worship is not music.  We can certainly worship Him without musicians and without a song.  And by the way, God does not actually seek worship.  The Word tells us that He seeks worshippers. He’s not looking for those who make the most beautiful music.  He’s looking for those who worship in spirit …  and in truth.  Music is only one of the ways that he has ordained for us to express our worship. Yet too many worship leaders today spend more time honing their craft and planning / rehearsing their worship sets, than they spend on their face, alone in worship.

– Steve Rice, from a blog article found at:  http://songsphere.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/authority-and-anointing/

(Corporate) “Worship isn’t about my way.  It’s about our community of faith and the best way for us together to offer our worship to God.  Because worship is about the community, it’s about the people we are trying to reach, and it’s especially about God.  So, the right qauestion for worship istn’t really, “Did I like it?”  The question is, “Did I encounter God in it?  Was I lost in wonder, love, and praise?”
Now remember, this worship talk is just one example of how the church (our church) is a very human community, with people who have different preferences and opinions and ideas which we think are right, but which differ from the preferences, opinions, and ideas of other people who likewise think the are right.”  (Other examples given here of areas where opinions, ideas, and preferences differ.)  “Here’s my point:  We have to be careful because we can let our preferences (my preferences) crowd out the church’s purpose, and our opinions can overwhelm the mission.  In other words, they can cloud the landmark.  They can march us right off the map, and and we can end up walking in circles.  And we walk in circles because it’s easy, all too easy, for us to confuse the good news of Jesus with good views we have.”  (our own ideas, opinions and preferences)

Our NOTE:  Since the primary purpose for the church to gather corporately is to worship God, worship is very much the mission of the church!   [One of several very important missions which include evanglism and witness (through personal contact and through preaching), service to others in the name of Christ, discipleship (through teaching, preaching, and mentorship) and baptism, prayer and personal devotion to the Lord, carrying the gospel beyond the local area (which we typically think of as “missions” and which is a continuation of our mission to evangelize and share a witness for Christ), and standing for what is right according to God’s word.]

– from a sermon by the Pastor Guy Sayles of the First Baptist Church of Asheville, North Carolina

Source E:  An excellent article about defining worship, written by Bob Kauflin @ http://www.worshipsource.com/articles/why-define-worship-worship-defined

Harold Best, in his book, Music Through the Eyes of Faith, defines worship in the broadest sense as “acknowledging that someone or something else is greater – worth more – and by consequence, to be obeyed, feared, and adored…Worship is the sign that in giving myself completely to someone or something, I want to be mastered by it. (pg. 143)

Dr. Dan Block, who until recently was a Professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, defines true worship as “reverential human acts of submission and homage before the divine Sovereign, in response to his gracious revelation of himself, and in accordance with his will.” (from Dr. Block’s For the Glory of God. course notes)

“Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His Beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin”.

—  From William Temple’s (1881-1944) Readings in St. John’s Gospel

“Worship is an active response to God, whereby we declare His worth.”  – source unknown

“The secret to freedom from enslaving patterns of sin is worship. You need worship. You need great worship. You need weeping worship. You need glorious worship. You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved by it – moved to tears and moved to laughter – moved by who God is and what He has done for you.”  – Tim Keller

“Worship is your direct ministry to God.  Will you minister to Him today?”  – Ray Jones, Worship Pastor (from his facebook post)

“God’s intention has always been to call forth a people who will proclaim His praise and propagate His blessing throughout the earth. Let us do that today.”  – from the Worship Ministry facebook page  @  https://www.facebook.com/WorshipMinistry

QUOTES ABOUT WORSHIP FROM OUR BOYDBRAIN MUSIC BLOG POSTS AND PAGES:

1.  Worship is about intentionally giving glory to God through the way that we live our lives.  In every daily activity, in every encounter with people, in every circumstance, in every conversation, in every thought, in every place, every relationship, every use of our talents and the resources that we have been given, in every choice that we make, we learn to increasingly focus on God’s Kingdom, His will and purpose for our lives, and how our response will bring Him glory.   In other words, our lives are to be lived in a continual mindset of worship.  We bring glory to God when we work, play and interact with others  “as to the Lord and not unto men.”
– Cynthia A. Boyd, from our “Lifestyle Worship” page
To read the entire article, go to:
http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/lifestyleworship/

2.  God has shown us His eternal and pure love through the giving of all that He is.  He has given us His message, the Word, both in the form of the scriptures and in the form of the Living Word, Jesus;  He has given His creativity, order, power, brilliance and majesty in Creation; He has given His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and patience in allowing us to choose whether to love and serve Him.  He has given us new life and purpose and an eternal home in Heaven through the gift of salvation.   He has given us His only Son, the most precious gift ever given, when we, as the recipients of this gift, were lost in sin and ugliness and the filth of selfishness.  If God is our model for giving, there are certain facts that are always evident about the kinds of gifts that truly make a difference.  First of all, His giving is sacrificial.  Secondly, His giving always has our best interests at heart.  Thirdly, He is ever present in His giving.  He gave us the earth as our temporary home, but he sustains it so that this life can continue according to His plan.   He gave us himself in the person of His Son, God with us, Emmanuel.  He gives us salvation and comes to live within us.  With every gift, God also gives Himself.  If we are to give a gift that has meaning and value to Him, we must also be very present in the giving, not just for a moment in time but for a lifetime.

What does the Bible have to say about our giving and how we must be present in the gift, in other words, giving ourselves?   From Romans 12:1 & 2, the meaning is abundantly clear: ^“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Because of God’s mercy, we know that He is good.  Our response to His goodness is our true and proper (in some translations, “reasonable”) worship:  the giving of ourselves.  This is to be a sacrificial gift, and yet we are allowed to continue living this earthly life.  We become living sacrifices, giving up our own will for His good, pleasing, and perfect will.  We allow Him to transform us through His Spirit.  As our mind is renewed, we gain some level of understanding of His purpose and His will for our lives.  As we give ourselves to Him, all that we are is changed and made new.  (II Corinthians 5:17  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”)  This new, spirit life within us causes us to want to live in a manner that brings honor and glory to the Lord, and this desire changes the focus of our lives.  We are no longer focused exclusively upon self and the world as it relates to our selves.  Instead, we begin to become aware that all that we think, say, and do has eternal importance.
– Cynthia A. Boyd, from our post entitled “Worship…It’s all about Giving!”
To read the entire post, go to:  https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/worship-its-all-about-giving-2/

3.  We know from Romans 12:1 & 2 that worship involves more than just the corporate gathering of God’s people.  Giving glory to God through the way the we live all of life should be the motivation for all we do as believers.
– Travis L. Boyd, from our post called “Worship in the New Testament”
To read the entire post, go to:  https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/worship-in-the-new-testament/

4.   The Bible tells us repeatedly to give God honor, glory, blessing, praise, worship, exaltation, joyful singing, thanksgiving, reverence, awe, and all that we are.  This is the key:  Worship is about giving!  It is not about us, or about our preferences, or about what we get out of the experience (although true worship does give back abundant blessings when we give Him the glory due His name!).  It is about seeing God for who He is…the Creator of everything that is, the Sustainer of Life, the Holy and Righteous One, the God of grace and glory, the Merciful Father who sacrificed His one and only Son out of love for us!  Our response then becomes an effort to give all that we are to Him, seeking to bring Him glory in all of life.  That is worship.
– Cynthia A. Boyd, from our post entitled “Understanding Worship”
To read the entire post, go to:  https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/understanding-worship/

5.  What a privelege and joy it is to be part of something that is older than the earth itself!  According to the book of Job, the heavenly hosts were engaged in worship of the Living God long before the creation of our solar system.  (Job 38)  In the book of Revelation, we are given vivid descriptions of worship that is going on in heaven even now.  (Rev. 4 & 5)  When something significant happened to Biblical characters, their first thought was to build an altar and worship the Lord.

…..When the church gathers for a time of worship, we are all given an opportunity to experience God’s power within a community of fellow believers.  Jesus spoke of the power of believers being physically and spiritually together (Matthew 18:20).  This is so important for the health of our spiritual lives and for the work of the  church.  Nothing else can substitute for being a part of a corporate worship experience.   Truly, the most foundational part of the Christian experience is worship of the Living God!  Believers need to rediscover the joy of worshipping the Lord with the church family.  True worship is a life-changing experience (that becomes a life style) of recognizing and expressing God’s worth.  He is worthy of our worship and praise!
– Travis L. Boyd, from our post entitled “Worship is Joy!”
To view the entire post, go to:  https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/worship-is-joy/

6.  (These quotations express some spiritual lessons that God was teaching to Travis surrounding the writing of “Much More Than a Song”.  What follows is an excerpt from the Song Story for “Much More Than a Song,”  with all of the worship quotes here written by Cynthia Boyd as part of the song story.)

Worship is more than a song.

Worship is more than any particular form of expression.

Worship is more than giving your best to God.  It’s being willing to give up your best and still give what you have left to God.

Worship is a passionate pursuit of God’s glory.

Worship may be expressed through what we do, but the act of worship never consists of any outward expression.  True worship always exists in the desire of the heart to bring Glory to God.

If I have ever truly worshipped God before a loss or a change in my life, I cannot allow such a change to alter my heart.

“Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised…” Psalm 96:3 &4a

Worship is a 24/7 attitude of the heart, a recognition of God’s supremacy and majesty that results in a constant desire to bring Him glory through my life.

Worship is much more than a song!

(Song Story…”Much More Than a Song”   contains further information in addition to the excerpt above.)

7.  We must not become too focused on the vehicle of our praise (the use of our abilities and skills in presenting to God the gifts that we prepare in our lives).  Instead, our focus needs to be upon the Object of our praise…..our awesome and loving God and our victorious Savior.  In ministry, we often focus on plans and programs, goals, and ideas.  Yet, we must remember that it is the ongoing process of becoming like Christ that is the ultimate gift to our God.  With lifelong preparation and refinement by God’s Holy Spirit at work within us, our lives become a Kingdom gift that has eternal significance.  We have taken God’s best gifts to us:  His love, mercy, and grace, His forgiveness, His Son, His Life within us, His presence, His Spirit, His Word….and allowed these to transform us into the image of our Lord.  All other gifts pale in comparison.

— Cynthia Boyd  in our post titled  Mud Pies and Ministry

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OUR FAVORITE WORSHIP QUOTES:

* 1 *
“It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men.”

Author: C.S. Lewis      Source: Reflections on the Psalms

* 2 * 
“If you are not passionate about worship, then you don’t know how much God loves you.”

–  found on http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Worship-is-My-Lifestyle/12340

* 3 *
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, “darkness” on the walls of his cell.”   – C. S. Lewis

(from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/c_s_lewis.html )

* 4 *
“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular , it is why he does it.”  –  A. W. Tozer

* 5 *
“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for, as God says in Isaiah 43:7, Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory.  That means that we were all created for the purpose of expressing the infinite worth of God’s glory. We were created to worship.”

– John Piper

Our paraphrase of the main point:  “Worship is intentionally expressing the infinite worth of God’s glory.”

Our expanded paraphrase:  Worship is first a profound spiritual recognition of the infinite worth of God’s glory that elicits a life-changing focus on the infinite worth of God, which is then intentionally and whole-heartedly expressed through seeking to live a life that brings Glory to Him.”

The original definition by John Piper, as printed above, is found in the devotion titled  ”Bodies, Breakfast, and the Marriage Bed”  and subtitled  “A Meditation on Daily Worship”. You can read the complete devotion at this link:  http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/bodies-breakfast-and-the-marriage-bed

* 6 *
“Worship is the true believer’s appropriate and grateful response to the revelation of who God is and what He has done and is doing (His transcendance, His holiness, His omnipotence, His omnicience, and His grace, love, and mercy). It is c…haracterized by a desire for a closer, more intimate relationship and knowledge of the Creator, total surrender of our will to His, and total obedience to His plan for our lives. It can and should be expressed in a variety of acts of praise and worship, including singing, prayer, lifting hands, clapping, bowing, shouting, and playing instruments. It is also expressed by our desire to glorify the Lord in our dailiy lives.” 

~ Travis L. Boyd, long-time Music and Worship Minister, composer, and co-author of the Worship Sounds Music blog 

 

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“Let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant with joy!  Sing to God, sing praises to His name; lift up a song to Him who rides upon the clouds; His name is the Lord, exult before Him!”   Psalm 68:3 & 4

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These definitions and quotations were compiled by C. Boyd from the sources cited.

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Here’s a link to a video about what worship is and is not:  http://vimeo.com/2242310

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Do you know Jesus?

The decision to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life as your Lord and Savior is the best decision you could ever make!  The one true God is ready to give you forgiveness and eternal life as soon as you understand your need for Him and believe on the name of His only Son, Jesus, for your salvation.  Here’s a blog page link to help you find the answers to your questions about Jesus.

http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-Jesus/

WORSHIP…it’s all about Giving!

The one true God,
the Creator of all that is,
has given to us everything that we have ever known.

Our lives,
our very breath,
our families,
our gifts and talents,
our earthly home,
sunshine and rain,
all of creation,
the capacity to love and be loved,
our minds and bodies,
our eternal souls,
His great love and mercy,
salvation,
and even His only Son

… all these are given to us from the hand of God the Father, the maker of Heaven and Earth.   What do we have that we can give to him?   Can any gift from the created ones be of value to the Creator of all that is?   After all, what do you give to the One who has absolutely everything?

God has shown us His eternal and pure love through the giving of all that He is. 
He has given us His message, the Word, both in the form of the scriptures and in the form of the Living Word, Jesus;  He has given His creativity, order, power, brilliance and majesty in Creation; He has given His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and patience in allowing us to choose whether to love and serve Him.  He has given us new life and purpose and an eternal home in Heaven through the gift of salvation.   He has given us His only Son, the most precious gift ever given, when we, as the recipients of this gift, were lost in sin and ugliness and the filth of selfishness.

As we think about the giving and loving nature of God, it follows that if God is our model for giving, there are certain facts that are always evident about the kinds of gifts that truly make a difference.

First of all, His giving is sacrificial to an extent that we are unable to fully comprehend.

Secondly, His giving always has our best interests at heart.

 Thirdly, God is ever present in His giving.

*  He gave us the earth as our temporary home, but he sustains it so that this life can continue according to His plan

*  He gave us himself in the person of His Son, God with us, Emmanuel.

*  He gives us salvation and comes to live within us.

With every gift, God also gives Himself.  If we are to give a gift that has meaning and value to Him, we must also be very present in the giving, not just for a moment in time but for a lifetime.  Though none of us will be able to perfectly fulfill the goal of giving our all to the Lord, we must press on and continue, with God’s help, to focus upon Him and diligently seek Him, striving to grow in our relationship with Him and to surrender all that we are to Him day by day and moment by moment.

What does the Bible have to say about our giving and how we must be present in the gift, in other words, giving ourselves? 

From Romans 12:1 & 2, the meaning is abundantly clear:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Because of God’s mercy, we know that He is good.  Our response to His goodness (as it has been revealed through His choice to show mercy) should then be (according to this scripture) our true and proper
(in some translations, “reasonable”) worship:
the giving of ourselves.

This is to be a sacrificial gift, and yet we are allowed to continue living this earthly life.  We become living sacrifices, giving up our own will for His good, pleasing, and perfect will.  We allow Him to transform us through His Spirit.  As our mind is renewed, we gain some level of understanding of His purpose and His will for our lives.  As we give ourselves to Him, all that we are is changed and made new.  (II Corinthians 5:17  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”)  This new, spirit life within us causes us to want to live in a manner that brings honor and glory to the Lord, and this desire changes the focus of our lives.  We are no longer focused exclusively upon self and the world as it relates to our selves.  Instead, we begin to become aware that all that we think, say, and do has eternal importance.  Though we will never achieve perfection in this earthly life, we still seek to give to the Lord an intentional living sacrifice with every choice that we make.  We have the power of God through his Holy Spirit within us to help us follow through with our commitment to live for God’s glory, so we do not have to strive in our own strength.  We are to live as to the Lord, and not unto men.  (See Colossians 3:23 & 24)

When the very living of our lives has become an act of worship, recognizing God’s supremacy and worth in every decision and thought, worship is no longer an action but rather a lifestyle.  It’s a 24 / 7 / 365 … every moment of every day … goal of intentionally expressing God’s glory in all that we do, think, and say.**   In living out this lifestyle and this heart commitment to the One who has given us His all, we give the only gift that we can give to our Creator and Savior:  the gift of a transformed life that brings Him glory and joy!

CORPORATE  WORSHIP  AND  GIVING…

What about when we come together to worship the Lord?   How will we give to Him a time of focused worship that is meaningful and reverent, joyful and celebratory, and based upon what we read in the Bible about the types of giving that should characterize a gathering of God’s people for the purpose of worshipping Him together?  What are some of the Biblical references that could be applied to our efforts to give of ourselves to the Lord through worship?

1.  We are to give God THANKSGIVING and PRAISE!

* Psalm 100:4   “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.”

* Psalm 9:1 & 2   “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart: I will tell of all Thy wonderful deeds.  I will be glad and exult in Thee, I will sing praise to Thy name, O Most High.”

2.  We are to give God GLORY!

(or, glorify Him)

* Psalm 86:12   “With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God. I will give glory to your name forever.”

* Psalm 96:6 – 9   “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.  Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”

3.  We are to give God AWE and REVERENCE, acknowledging Him as the Lord and Creator of all.

(In some verses and some translations, “the fear of the Lord”)

* Psalm 111:10   “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”

* Psalm 86:9 – 12   “All the nations You have made shall come and bow down before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name.  For You are great, and You do wondrous things; You alone are God.  Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.  I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Your name forever.”

4.  We are to give God BLESSING.  (Bless the Lord, bless the name of the Lord)

* Psalm 103:22   “Bless the LORD, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Bless the LORD, O my soul!”

* Psalm 28:6 & 7   “Blessed be the Lord!  for He has heard the voice of my supplications.  The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts; so I am helped and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”

5.  We are to give Him EXALTATION!*  (or exalt Him, exalt His name)

From the www.thefreedictionary.com, here are the applicable definitions:

1. to raise or elevate in rank, position, dignity, etc.

2. to praise highly; glorify; extol

* Psalm 34:3   “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

*NOTE:  The word ‘exaltation’ sometimes gets confused with ‘exultation’, for which the definition is “to rejoice greatly, be jubilant or triumphant (or, as in triumph.  We rejoice greatly in His triumph.)  — same source

6.  We are to give Him SERVICE!  (giving of our hearts, our time, our gifts, and our lives in serving Him)

* Joshua 24:15   “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Lift up His name!

7.  We are to give Him WORSHIP!

True worship rises up from the people of God, who are choosing to intentionally express His infinite worth! **

**(see note at end of post)

You have probably noticed by now that there is some overlap in the various types of giving to the Lord.  For example, in singing praise to God, we can bless His name.  In the worship category of giving, there is overlap with all other types of giving.  All of these ways of giving to the Lord are worship (lifestyle worship) when we are giving with the purpose of bringing glory to God and expressing His infinite worth through giving our best to God in every area of our lives.

* Psalm 29:2   “Honor the LORD for the glory of His name. Worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness.”

* Phillippians 3:3   “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

John 4:24   “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

8.  We are to SING UNTO HIM!

* Psalm 5:11   “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.”

* Psalm 30:4   “Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.”

* Psalm 59:16 & 17   “I will sing of Thy power; yes, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  Unto Thee, O my Strength, will I sing; for God is my defense , and the God of my mercy.”   Psalm 59:16 & 17“I will sing of Thy power; yes, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  Unto Thee, O my Strength, will I sing; for God is my defense , and the God of my mercy.”

9.  We are to give Him TITHES and OFFERINGS!

* Malachi 3:10   “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

* Exodus 35:29   “The children of Israel brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah, every man and woman whose heart prompted them to bring for all manner of work, which Jehovah, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.”

10.  We are to give Him HONOR!

* Revelation 4:11   “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

* Psalm 96:6 – 9   “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.  Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”

* Proverbs 3:9   “Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first and best part of all your income.”

Just as we would honor a guest in our home by seeking to serve our best meal and prepare diligently so that all will be able to enjoy the best time of fellowship, we choose to give unto the Lord the best of all that we are and all that we have for His honor.   We honor the Lord by giving, just as He has chosen to honor us by seeking fellowship with us and reaching out to us through the gift of His very best.

Psalm 8:3 – 5  

“When I consider Your heavens,

the work of Your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which You have set in place,

what is man that You are mindful of him,

the son of man that You care for him?

You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings^c

and crowned him with glory and honor.”

11.  We are to give Him LOVE!

The words of Jesus Himself in Mark 12:30   “AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.”

* Psalm 31:23   “Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.”

* Joshua 22:5   “But be very careful to obey all the commands and the instructions that Moses gave to you. Love the LORD your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”

* Psalm 116:1   “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.”

Give Him your heart

12.  We are to give Him OUR WHOLE HEART AND LIFE!

* I Chronicles 28:9   “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

* Psalm 86:9 – 12    “All the nations You have made shall come and bow down before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name.  For You are great, and You do wondrous things; You alone are God.  Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.  I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Your name forever.”

* Colossians 1:10   “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.”

* Psalm 56:13   “For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping. So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light.”

* Mark 8:35   “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”

In demonstration of His infinite love for us, God continues to give.
In response to our efforts to give, He gives again in return.  It is impossible to give more of ourselves that He gives of Himself.  For God and for Jesus, demonstrating perfect love for us has been, is now, and will always be about giving.  For us, in giving to God honor, blessing, exaltation, thanksgiving, praise, glory, awe and reverence, love, honor, service, tithes and offerings, songs, and all that we are in life and in our hearts is our gift of worship and devotion to Him.  Again, he responds with more giving.  He gives His presence in response to true worship, and all Heaven breaks loose!  The Bible is full of promises for those who will give to the Lord their all.
Giving is about worship, and worship is all about giving.

“Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength.  Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”‘   Psalm 96:6 – 9

GOD HAS GIVEN HIS ALL…may we follow His example.

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**Here is a link to John Piper’s devotion where this definition of worship, paraphrased here, can be found:  http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/bodies-breakfast-and-the-marriage-bed

The wording of the original definition (directly quoted) in the first paragraph of this devotion is as follows:

“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for, as God says in Isaiah 43:7, “Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory…” That means that we were all created for the purpose of expressing the infinite worth of God’s glory. We were created to worship.”

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This post was written by C. Boyd.

For other posts on worship, view our category called “Worship with Wonder” at https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/category/worship-with-wonder/

We also have a page entitled “Lifestyle Worship”  at this link:  http://wwwworshipsounds.wordpress.com/lifestyle-worship

The titles of additional pages related to worship ministry (on topics such as creative worship ideas, worship planning and preparation, and avoiding burnout in ministry) can be found in the header on our home page at the bottom of the scenic photo.

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Do you know Jesus?

The decision to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life as your Lord and Savior is the best decision you could ever make!  The one true God is ready to give you forgiveness and eternal life as soon as you understand your need for Him and believe on the name of His only Son, Jesus, for your salvation.  Here’s a blog page link to help you find the answers to your questions about Jesus.  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

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Understanding Worship

“I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; and I will glorify Thy name forevermore.” Psalm 86:12

How can we recognize authentic worship, and how can we make sure that we as individuals are authentic in worshipping our Almighty God?

 *  Is there a particular style or form of worship that is more authentic than any other?
*  Is there something that can be measured or seen in authentic worship?  
*  What is the focus of authentic worship, and what should be our understanding of what the word ‘worship’ really means?

Most importantly, HOW can our church experience the kind of dynamic worship that blows the doors off of our church buildings by spilling over and flooding into our daily lives and thereby impacting the community around us?

Perhaps, we need to look for the answer to this question:  “What did Jesus say about true worship?”

Jesus said that true worshippers will worship God in Spirit and in truth and that God seeks such worshippers (John 4:23 & 24).

What does it mean to worship God in Spirit and in truth?

The answer to this very important question often eludes God’s people, and sometimes there is very little attention given to the subject.   In over 35 years of active church life, since the time of our salvation, in the churches where Travis and I have served, we’ve heard very few sermons and Bible studies that specifically addressed the topic of worship in depth.  This topic may not be neglected in every congregation, but years of ministry have shown us that God’s people often have a lack of knowledge about true worship.  So many people seem to think that worship is a 25 minute time of singing just before the preaching begins in a congregational worship service.  Others have actually been told that the purpose of congregational worship is to “prepare the hearts of the people to receive the message from God’s word”  (preaching).  However, in reality, worship is worship!  Worship is our response to recognizing God’s ultimate worth.  The goal of worship is to give God glory!  We do not worship God in order to prepare for something else.  The preaching of God’s word is worship, too, when it brings God glory!   We worship through the proclamation of the word.  Unfortunately, many people have very wrong ideas about what worship is and how the concept of worship should fit into the everyday life of every Christian.

The primary focus for every Christian should be to relate to our holy God and worship Him, and yet we are woefully under-educated about how to do the very thing for which we were created and for which the church meets together every week.  In a corporate worship service and in the way that we live our daily lives, our focus should be on worshipping God and giving Him glory.   However, when we view God only through the lens of our own lives, what we want Him to do for us, and the blessings we seek, then our focus becomes all about us.   We become more concerned about what we get out of worship and not concerned at all about what we give!

The Bible tells us repeatedly to give God honor, glory, blessing, praise, worship, exaltation, joyful singing, thanksgiving, reverence, awe, and all that we are.  This is the key:  Worship (our response to our holy, almighty, and supreme God) is about giving!  It is not about us, or about our preferences, or about what we get out of the experience (although true worship does give back abundant blessings when we give Him the glory due His name!).

Worship is about seeing God for who He is…
the Creator of everything that is,
the Sustainer of Life,
the Holy and Righteous One,
the God of grace and glory,
the Merciful Father who sacrificed His one and only Son out of love for us!

Our response then becomes an effort to give all that we are to Him, seeking to bring Him glory in all of life.

That is worship.

Okay, so we’re supposed to give.  What happens when we come to a worship service without being ready to give?   There are a couple of scenarios.

A.  Sometimes we may feel that we have nothing to give.  God does not want our perfection…we have none.  He does not want us to pretend to feel anything other than what we feel.  If we are feeling lonely or sad, He wants us to confess that and give it to Him.  If we are struggling with trusting Him, He wants us to admit the struggle and ask Him to give us a heart of praise in the midst of it.  Whatever our burden may be, he wants us to lay it down and to exchange it for the garment of praise.  When we realize our need to be clothed with praise, intentionally seeking to give God glory in spite of circumstances, He can work in our hearts and lives in spite of any areas where we fall short of His will for us.  He meets us right where we are and continues to give the gifts of His presence, comfort, peace, assurance, gifts of the Spirit, and even quickens (wakes up and brings to life) His Spirit within us, enabling us to give and to worship.  Imagine what could happen when a whole congregations chooses the mindset of focusing on our Great God rather than on our problems, our faults, or the faults of others!  Wow!  That would be amazing!

B.  In contrast to this scenario, consider what happens when we sit down in the worship center and are not even aware that we could be bringing to God the offerings of praise, worship, our hearts and lives, exaltation, thanksgiving, and more through everything that takes place during the worship service (not just the singing!) ?   If we are not only unaware of our need to give Him praise but also unwilling to view the worship experience as one of giving, our focus is on self and ‘the Lord as He relates to me.’  Unfortunately, the end result of this approach is lifeless worship, selfish attitudes, and division within the fellowship.  If someone were to ask what we were doing, our response might be that we are giving God praise.  But unless we are truly praising God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and focusing on Him alone as though He were right there in the room with us (He is!), our words are nothing more that lip service.

True worship unites our hearts, because we all share a common focus…on Him!

Matthew 18:20 tells us that Jesus will be in our midst when we gather in His name!  Only as we lay aside every earthly attitude that would hinder true worship and put all of our focus on Him can we say that we are gathered in His name.  Without the presence of God, there is no power in worship.  The power comes from Him, not from us or from any specific forms of worship.  Whatever form our corporate worship service takes, if the people of God are not focused on bringing Him glory, then it is not really worship.

If I were a cartoonist, I would illustrate this post with some very meaningful cartoons.  These cartoons would depict how a fundamental misunderstanding of worship has resulted in a self-focus that is very harmful to the fellowship of the church.  The idea that the form or worship is the most important thing and the resulting attitude and fellowship problems can be well illustrated by several imaginary situations.

The Birthday Party
The first cartoon would picture a child’s birthday party where all of the guests have come wearing party hats with various slogans.  One hat pictures a chocolate ice cream cone with the slogan, “Just Say NO to Vanilla!”   Another hat says, “Bigger goody bags!”  Still another says, “More cake!”   You get the picture.  Unfortunately, the party guests would seem to have forgotten that the party is not about them and their preferences.  The purpose of the party is to celebrate and honor the birthday boy (or girl).   From experience as a party guest, I can testify that when one attends the party with the attitude that the party is for the honoree and that everyone wishes to contribute to the celebration of said person’s life, a guest can still have a great time and also the wonderful feeling of knowing that you helped someone you love have a really special moment in time.  There is joy in the giving because of  love!  Remember that God so loved that He gave!

Who is the guest of honor?

God’s Sign
My second cartoon illustration would picture a congregation sitting in the pews, waiting for the service of worship to begin.  Several of the congregants are holding signs.  One sign says, “More hymns!”.   Another, “More worship songs!”, and still another, “More Southern Gospel”.  Other signs read, “More drums!’ and “Bigger choir!”   The second frame of this cartoon would show the platform area of the worship center.  Suddenly, a large cloud has appeared, hovering directly over the platform.  This is clearly not a normal cloud, for it is seemingly illuminated from within.   The third frame would show the startled looks on the faces of all of the members and ministers.  One person asks, “What in the world is that?”  In the fourth frame, an answer is given.  From the bottom of the cloud, a sign drops down with a 2 word message from God:  “More worship!”

Would we be worrying about our preferences if we could see Him?

In the Same Room
My third cartoon would again show a congregation in the pews (or chairs), with one very important difference.   This congregation is very visibly divided.  There are soundproof glass walls that extend all the way to the ceiling of the worship center and divide the seating area into sections.   Each seating area has it’s own mini platform in front, with a sign indicating the style of worship music that will take place in each section.  One section, labeled “Christian Rock”, has a full rock band set up, with lighting effects.  Another, labeled “Traditional Worship,”  has a choir and orchestra, and a piano and organ.   Another section, labeled “Southern Gospel,”  has a quartet warmed up and ready to sing.  Finally, the fourth section, labeled “Praise and Worship,”  has a praise band and praise team, a celebration choir, banners proclaiming God’s glory, and an incredible media set-up.   In the cartoon frame, a greeter has escorted a guest into the worship center.  As the guest takes in the scene, the greeter says, “Well, at least we’re still worshipping together!”   (Ouch!  Not really!)

[Note:  Remember that being together with our brothers and sisters in Christ is fellowship.  Worshipping together is divine communion.]

Techno Church
The fourth cartoon is unfortunately a really sad commentary and could take place not too far into the future.   In the first frame of the cartoon, each person in the worship center is wearing headphones and sitting in front of a screen.  You see, there is no longer enough unity to truly worship together, so the church of the future has settled for being in the same building at the same time.  Each individual controls their own “worship mix.”   At their personal computer screen, each person chooses which song videos they will see and hear on their screens and through their headphones.  They determine the style of the songs, which songs are sung, and even choose which group will perform them from a pre-recorded video menu.  Then, they can even choose their own sermon and preacher.  The middle frame shows everyone concentrating on their individual screens, isolated from fellow church members with their headphones and their individual worship service mix.  In the final frame, congregants begin to leave the worship center, having finished their ‘service’.  One shakes hands with another and says, “It was great to worship with you today.”   (Double ouch!)

I hope and pray that these last 2 cartoon depictions from my head don’t become reality!  We must begin to teach and preach and proclaim that true worship is about giving!   We’ll continue right down the slippery slope of demanding our own way and failing to extend any grace to other believers if we don’t begin to shout this message from the rooftops!  It’s not about me!  It’s not about you!  It’s not about one age group or another!  It’s not about a preferred musical style or your own particular list of favorite songs.  It’s not about formality or informality.  It’s not the style or cost of our clothing.

Worship is about Him!  It’s about giving God glory in every area of life, and corporately giving Him glory, honor, blessing, exaltation, thanksgiving, praise, and our whole hearts when we meet together to worship!  That, dear reader, is true worship!

Please, feel free to share this blog post with everyone you can think of!  God help us to worship Him in Spirit and in truth!

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This post was written by Cynthia A. Boyd, with full responsibility and no apologies for its content.

Lord, please use the foolishness of bold words to draw hearts to yourself!

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There are several additional posts about worship on our blog.  Read the following posts and pages for additional perspective, practical ideas, and inspiration:

1.  “Lifestyle Worship”  (page focusing on giving God glory in all of life)   https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/lifestyle-worship/

2.  “Creative Worship Ideas”  (page, self-explanatory)  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/creative-worship-ideas/

3.  “Worship ABC’s”   (good as a reminder or even for a dramatic or media presentation in worship)  post published Nov. 7, 2011  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/worship-abcs/

4.  “Worship Planning and Preparation”  (a comprehensive guide, with lots of inspiration and things to consider)  post published Jan. 26, 2012   http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/worship-planning-and-preparation/

5.  “Worship is Joy!”   (post focusing on the joy of giving God praise when we worship Him for who He is)   post published 1-31-2012   http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/worship-is-joy/

6.  Music is a gift…Worship the Giver!  (self-explanatory, very thought-provoking)

7.  https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/worship-its-all-about-giving-2/   Our best post on what worship really is, with every point sharing solid scriptural truth.

In addition, our page entitled “Lift Your Voice” is an extensive resource page for worship related scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments.  Check it out at http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/lift-your-voice/

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Here’s a link to a great article on the subject of worship and preference and what the REAL worship war is all about, written by Stephen Miller and published by the online mag Relevant Magazine.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/modern-worship-music-wars

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Do you know Jesus?

The decision to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life as your Lord and Savior is the best decision you could ever make!  The one true God is ready to give you forgiveness and eternal life as soon as you understand your need for Him and believe on the name of His only Son, Jesus, for your salvation.  Here’s a blog page link to help you find the answers to your questions about Jesus.  http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/

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