I know, I’ve not been staying up to date. I didn’t have chapter 2 of the book. Now I have the whole thing though, so we’re good.

Week 2 – Understanding Praise

Yep, I’m throwing the whole week together in one post. sorry.

So, how do we need to approach praise? As children… full of trust in and abandonment to God!
Last week we learned that worship needs to be a part of our everyday lives – everything we do can be done as an act of worship. Praise is a part of worship – it is the upward direction. Worship TO God. It is the worship that is obvious to the world around us.

How do we praise then?

Well, the book outlines 8 Expressions of Praise:

• Visible
  ~kneeling
  ~dancing
  ~raising hands
• Vocal
  ~shouting
  ~singing
  ~speaking
• Audible
  ~playing an instrument
  ~clapping

All of these expressions are in the bible, and all can be used to show your adoration to God! Most people think of singing as worship – ask most people who have ever gone to church and they will tell you that the “worship portion of the service” was singing. Many churches also add in raising or clapping of hands, and most also have instruments playing along with the singing. Those are the basics…

But what about the rest?

Some churches shout out regularly, while some never do. Many churches have scripture read or give people a chance to share what God has done in their lives. That falls under speaking. But what about the visual worship? That seems to fall to the more charismatic churches to use. Dancing, raising hands and kneeling are not always found, but they can be powerful ways to worship our Almighty God.

What about your private worship? Do you ever kneel while you are worshiping God? Kneeling is a sign of submission, a sign of acknowledging that God is above you. It brings a certain level of humility to our spirits. It’s also a step towards falling prostrate before God. There were many kings who forced people to kneel in their presence – some even forced people to enter into their throne rooms kn their knees! Thankfully, God does not force us to kneel before Him! But He does ask it of us…

What about dancing? The Bible says that King David danced before the Lord when the Ark was brought into Jerusalem – and that his wife hated him for it. Are you willing to worship God with abandonment, even if others look upon you with disdain? That is often a difficult one for many people. May churches do not allow dancing of any kind – ever. Remember the movie Footloose? The basic story followed a kid who loved to dance and the issues that raised within the local church (and the pastor’s daughter…). He set out to show the pastor that dancing was not evil… no, he wasn’t dancing for God necessarily, but it was a good reminder to many Christians that dancing is biblical, and we shouldn’t disallow it.

Raising hands is something that I have grown up with. I grew up in a fairly charismatic church, so raising hands was the norm (along with lots of other things!) so that one has never been an issue for me… but it’s not that way for everyone. What are we saying when we raise our hands before God? We are yielding to Him, we are submitting to Him, we are receiving from Him… we are giving Him our worship. We are lifting holy hands to the King of kings.

I encourage you to take some time to truly open yourself up to worshiping God and giving Him praise… kneel before Him in humility, dance before Him out of the overflow of your heart, lift up your hands to Him, sing, speak, shout, clap, and worship Him. Let Him show you how He wants you to come before Him. Change it up a bit! If you have never used one of these expressions of praise before, try it out! You never know what God could show you while you are offering up a sacrifice of praise.

Trust Him to lead you in the direction He wants you to take. Spend time listening to His still, small voice. Spend time speaking out the blessings He has poured into your life in thankfulness. Speak out some of His names:

• Wonderful Counselor
• Prince of Peace
• Conqueror
• Almighty
• Saviour
• Mighty God
• Justice
• Holy
• Worthy
• Angel of the Lord
• Majesty
• Baptizer
• Creator
• God
• Comforter
• Perfect Sacrifice
• Indescribable
• Incorporable
• Uncontainable
• Lover of my Soul
• the Holy Spirit
• Preserver
• Transcendent
• Without Sin
• Unblemished
• Three in One
• Elohim
• Adonai
• Alpha and Omega
• Perfecter
• Finisher
• Omniscient One
• Emmanuel
• Father
• Friend
• Healer
• Lamb of God
• Abba Father
• Salvation
• the One who was and is and is to come
• Physician
• Advocate
• Root of Jesse
• Rock
• Fortress
• Defense
• Logos
• the Author & Finisher of our Faith
• the Holy One of Israel
• Sanctifier
• Life Giver
• Daystar
• Love
• the One True God
• Dayspring
• Desire of Nations
• our Sacrifice
• Faithful
• Prophet
• Wisdom
• Ransom
• True Witness
• Horn of Salvation
• Refiner
• High Priest
• Refuge
• Gift of God
• Rabbi
• Mediator
• Passover Lamb
• Bridegroom
• Consolation of Israel
• Jehovah
• El Shaddai
• Yahweh
• Great Provider
• Rose of Sharon
• Lord
• Shepherd
• Judge
• Branch
• the Way, the Truth and the Life
• Yeshua
• Redeemer
• Son of God
• Son of Man
• Teacher
• Living God
• God of my Salvation
• El
• God of Eternity
• Glorious
• El Elyon
• Yahweh Shalom
• Light of the world
• Lion of Judah
• Advocate
• Bread of Life
• Messiah
• Shield
• Righteous One
• Everlasting God
• the Immortal One
• Ancient of Days
• God of Wonders
• the Word
• Keeper
• Christ
• King of kings and Lord of lords
• I AM…

Let the majesty and power of our Holy God pour into your heart, mind and soul and give Him the worship and praise that He is due!

It can be life-changing.

Today’s topic the bible study focused on thankfulness… not always the easiest topic!

We were sent to read 1 Thessalonians 4:18 – Thank God in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you who are in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will].

Notice that it doesn’t say that we need to be thankful for these circumstance, rather that we are to be thankful in the midst of them. I have personally found, though, that I am often very thankful for them as well – once they are in the past.

There is nothing that happens to us that God has not allowed in our lives. He allows these things to teach us, to draw us unto Himself, or to reach out to those around us by how we react in the midst of them. That is an important thing to remember – the world is watching us, and they are taking mental notes of how we deal with this crazy roller coaster called life. Life sends us on ups and downs – complete with some hairpin turns – but God promises us that He will always be there beside us through it all.

There are so many times in my life that God has shown His eternal faithfulness – I could fill many pages just with those stories – and while I don’t want to have to live through them again, I am thankful that I had to – those trials and times of testing have changed me on a level that runs very deep. There are aspects of who I am that would not be that way without those trials, there is a strength in my faith that would be lacking had I not been through these trials. I can now say that I KNOW that God will provide, that God will be faithful, and that He will be right there beside me, because He has proven it time and time again. And He will be there for you too, I am assured of this.

We also read Hebrews 13:15-16
Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name. Do not forget or neglect to do kindness and good, to be generous and distribute and contribute to the needy [of the church as embodiment and proof of fellowship], for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

These verses go back to the three-fold aspect of worship – upward, inward and outward. We need to constantly offer our praise to God – even when it takes a sacrifice on our part (and we all know that there are days that we just don’t feel like praising Him!) Even when we are in the midst of the toughest time our lives have ever seen, we need to praise Him.

My dad was killed in a plane crash on the day my youngest daughter was born. Talk about a challenge! On top of this, my husband had been out of work for 5 months (almost to the day) at this point, with no prospects, no interviews, and no clue when he would be able to work again. At three days old, my daughter was packed up and too her first plane ride – two actually – as we flew home for my dad’s funeral. The funeral was held on my Grandma’s birthday – yes, his mom.

This is just a snippet of everything that happened during this year – just one week – but during this week (and the 5 months prior to it) God showed us His faithfulness. We couldn’t have afforded plane tickets – we hadn’t had income for 5 months, remember? – but we were able to use my dad’s SkyMiles to get tickets for Eric & I to fly home and back. We missed the first flight out, which gave us some time to spend in quiet with my mom at the airport (she had flown up for the birth) before we had to face everyone and process through everything. then we were greeted by every member of my family that lived there at the airport. Yes, I automatically looked for my Daddy’s face, but it wasn’t there. It would never be there again. My daughters will never have their Grandpa there to teach them all of the things that I had counted on him teaching them. But, I know that God will work everything out for good – and He has! There were over 700 people at that funeral – people whose lives my Dad had effected. People who claimed that it was his living testimony that gave them a glimpse of Jesus. People who through experiencing his death and how our family dealt with it were changed.

That was almost 7 years ago, and there are still days that I want to call my Dad to ask him some little thing, but I can’t. Yes, I still miss him terribly – and I always will – but I know that he is in a better place! He is getting to worship God directly at the foot of His throne!

God used this time of personal trial in so many lives, and so much good has come out of this.  I cannot look back with bitterness, because while it came with a healthy dose of heartache, it also came with an amazing amount of blessing!

During that year we buried 5 people who were very close to us. My 1.5 year old daughter had what we called her “funeral dress” because she wore it to them so often. Eric’s Grandpa also passed away during this time – about 3.5 months before my Dad. Because Eric was out of work, he was able to be there with his Grandpa when he died – to watch him take his last breath. To be there for his Mom and Sisters, his Grandma and her sisters – to take a week or more to spend down at his Grandpa’s bedside. To be able to be there to comfort them, to encourage them, and to just spend time.

Was this a hard trial? You have no idea. But God once again proved to us His faithfulness and love. Every time we ran out of money to pay our rent, something came through. Yes, we were on WIC and the State of Washington paid for our daughter to be born (Praise God!) but even so, making ends meet was tough. We pulled in, spent time together, spent time with God, and were beyond blessed by our church family. We even ended up living with another family for the last month before Eric finally got a job – in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home! We were blessed by the compassion showed by those around us, by the relationships that God had built up around us, and by His people living out their worship by ministering to us.

I could tell more, but I think I will save those stories for another day.

The point of my sharing this is simple – we need to praise God no matter our circumstances. The loss of a parent – praise God, the loss of a child – praise God! The loss of a job – praise God, the loss of a house – praise God! No matter what He brings into your life, He will be right there beside you to see you through it. He will provide.  And He will use it to further His kingdom.

Now, take it a step beyond simply praising Him in the midst – the Bible calls us to be thankful for them! I think I can truly say that I am thankful for each trial that He has brought me through. I am thankful for the woman that He is grooming me to be. I am thankful for the relationships that He showed me through them, and I am thankful for the testimony that has been created by them.

The study also reminded of the old song “Count Your Blessings”

“Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done,
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings see what God has done.”

The simple act of writing out the blessings that God has poured into your life can be a humbling experience – I know it is for me. I encourage you to sit and make a list of the blessings that God had sent your way – and keep in mind that many times those blessing are disguised as heartache.

The most humbling blessing – yet the most awesome one too – is that God sent His only Sun Jesus to earth to die a horrible, humiliating, painful death for me… for you… for every person He ever created.

I’m not sure that i would be able to make that same sacrifice! That I would be willing to exchange the life of one of my children for someone else. If anything, I would be more apt to offer my own life to spare theirs. But that’s just what God did – He willingly offered His Son in exchange for all humanity. In exchange for people who turn their backs on Him, who spat in His face, who curse His name on a daily basis. For people who don’t even care.

Make sure that the Blessing of Jesus is at the top of that list.

So, I’m starting a new bible study online tomorrow using the new Pure Praise book. If you want to join in, head over to TheWorshipCommunity.com for the details.

Being a good student (yes, it does occasionally happen!) I decided to read a bit of it tonight to get my thoughts heading in the right direction – basically skimming the first chapter before diving in.

But I got stuck.

I came upon a portion of day 3 that sent me into Amos… and as I was reading the passage it sent me to, I noticed that there was a coupe of verses that had been underlined at some point in the past… so I re-read them (after all, that’s why we underline them, right?)

Then I went back and read the chapter… chapter 5 of Amos, to be more exact. This is one of those times in Israel’s history that God was sending a prophet of judgment to the northern kingdom… but there are a couple of verses that jumped out at me that I wanted to share.

“Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel. Seek Me – inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food – and you shall live” Amos 5:4

“Seek the Lord – inquire for and of Him and require Him – and you shall live.” 5:6a

“Seek – inquire for and require – good ans not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate the evil and love the good and establish justice in the court of the city’s gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” Amos 5:14-15

Are we seeing a pattern here? We are to Seek God – and I loved the insert added into the Amplified Bible – “Inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food” (emphasis mine) that is what it means to truly seek God. Our souls need Him the way that our bodies need food. He is our nourishment! If we do not require the food that He offers, we will slowly whither away, we will become malnourished. this is not a good thing!

Trust me, there is a reason that these verses jumped out at me. I have been caught up in the business of life and have not taken that time. I have been starving! My spirit is requiring God as my body requires food, yet I have been ignoring those hunger pains.

Then the study sent me over to Psalm 51… and the following jumped off the page.

“O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You delight not in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You find no pleasure in burnt offering. My sacrifice – the sacrifice acceptable to God – is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent] such, O God, You will not despise.” Ps. 51:15-17

Yes, this is an oft-quoted passage, but again, I love the description… a heart that is broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent. When was the last time you were penitent? Does our modern society even know what it means? I decided to look it up.

pen-i-tent:
–adjective

---

Origin:
1325–75; ME < ML pēnitent-, L paenitent- (s. of paenitēns), prp. of paenitēre to regret; r. ME penaunt < AF; see penance

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

So, a penitent person is contrite., they are expressing sorrow over sin, and “disposed to atonement” – translation please! If you are disposed to atonement, you are open to or inclined towards receiving forgiveness.

So, how do we find ourselves feeling penitent? Is this something that just happens to us as we randomly walk through life? Not usually.

No, in order for our hearts to find themselves humbled and repentant we need to find a reason to recognize that we have sinned. We need to encounter the majesty and glory of a holy God.

If we never see Him – His majesty, His grace, His holiness – we will merely become as self-righteous fools thinking only of how good we are rather than recognizing that WE ARE SINNERS.

Oh, and a self-righteous fool is someone who finds their righteousness within themselves, rather than in God.

So, can you say that? Can you speak – out loud – the words “I am a sinner” and truly mean it? This is a hard thing to do some days! Go ahead, say it. If you cannot recognize that truth, then you cannot truly recognize the grace of God!

The Pharisees did not recognize that either. They were proud of their righteousness! They were proud that they had kept the Law (and added substantially more of their own!) and they weren’t too keen on the fact that Jesus told them that they had to claim to be a sinner.

Are we any better than them?

We need to find a way to truly experience the majesty and awesomeness of God if we want to truly recognize just how lost we are. When we experience the majesty of God – truly experience it – we cannot continue on the former path. We will recognize our weakness, and realize that this thing called life is not something that we can do on our own.

We need God!

We need to be able to cry out “Abba Father” when we fail or are afraid, the same way that our children cry out for us. If we do not know Him, we will not cry out for Him. We need to know the one who introduced Himself as “I AM” – the one who IS always – there is no yesterday, no tomorrow. God is ever-present. He holds our tomorrows in His hands, so there is no reason to fear.

God is majestic, He is holy, and as such He cannot tolerate sin. He is pure! It is for this reason that He had to send a part of Himself – His Son Jesus – to earth to be a sacrifice. We cannot do it on our own – we are not holy. Without the filter of Jesus, God would only see the wretched, filthy rags of our sin clinging to us. Thankfully, Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross, and when God looks at us through that filter, He sees His perfect, spotless, Holy Son. We can then be accepted into the presence of God.

Praise God!

We now have a direct line of access to the Throne of Grace! We can boldly come before our perfect, majestic God without fear! We can commune with Him, we can talk with Him, we can cry out to Him!

This brings me to the next passage that God put on my heart tonight… Psalm 55.

1 “Listen to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my supplication … (3) I am distracted at the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression and threats of the wicked, for they would cast trouble upon me, and in wrath they persecute me. (4) My heart is grievously pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me”

(16)”As for me, I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. (17) evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice. (18) He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me… (22) But I will trust in, lean on and confidently rely on You [God].”

David knew God. He had that direct line of communication with the Most High God, and he was not afraid to use it! He cried out to God with assurance that God would not only hear him, but that God would answer his cry! Do we come before Him with that same boldness? Do we have that same confidence in our relationship with God that we will come before Him with expectation of what He will do?

We should.

We are surrounded on all sides by an enemy that is distracting. He will do whatever he can to keep us from crying out to God – boldness and assurance or not. He will make us too busy to carve out that time alone with God. He will distract us from the beauty of what God has brought us through in the past by dredging up our past failures – taking our focus off of God and putting it on us. He will pull out any and everything that he can think of to take our eyes off of God.

But what did David do? He cried out to God morning, noon and night! He made his petitions known to a God that could take care of everything – and he knew it.

We need to cry out when we are surrounded by the noise and distractions that come from our enemy. We need to have the confidence in God and in our relationship with Him that He will hear our cry and act upon it.

Yes, God does allow times of trials and testing to come our way, but these times are there to bring us back to God. They also serve to shine out His light to the unbelievers around us. How we react to the trials in our lives will show them the difference that comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The bible says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We must first humble ourselves enough to seek His face. To come face to face with His holiness, so that we can truly see our sin. Once we truly see our sin – recognize it and admit it – then we can begin to understand our need for Him. For His grace and mercy in our lives.

I challenge both of us to carve out that time in our busy schedules to seek Him. To realize our need for Him that is greater than our need for food. We need to feed our spirit with the Word of God, so that we don’t find ourselves so malnourished that when the enemy distracts us, it’s an easy job.

Instead, I want to be a woman that when I wake up, all of hell groans in fear of what God will use me to do that day. I want to be so close to Him that every aspect of my life is lived out in submission to Him, and – most importantly – in worship of Him.

God alone is worthy of worship. We were created to give Him worship. He longs for it, and our hearts yearn to do it! Why do we stand in the way of that connection?

Let’s open up that connection, let’s seek after the One who is worthy of praise and be humbled by His glory – the glory of the Most High. Let’s give Him the praise that is due to Him and Him alone.

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*God works so mysteriously! Thanks to Pastor Chris for letting me borrow some of his points from the sermon today – they helped God get the point that He was making to me through these verses.