Approaching God through Thanksgiving,
Praise and Worship
Scripture tells us that God is looking
for two things:
·
The Lost, (Luke 19:10) 10For the Son of man is
come to seek and to save that which was lost.
and
·
Those that will worship Him in Spirit and Truth (Jn
4:23,24) 23But the hour cometh, and now is,
when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and
in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God
is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth.
God made us for His pleasure (Rev 4:10,11) 10The
four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the
throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast
their crowns before the throne, saying, 11Thou
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for
thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and
were created.
And He fervently desires fellowship with us.
He wants to meet with each one of us on a
heart to heart level. That’s what He created us for!
We need the very same thing as well -
Without this communion, our relationship with God grows cold and
lifeless.
So how do we approach God Almighty?
For a start, we need to be In Relationship
with Him: Believing that Jesus Christ died on the Cross
for our sins, that He rose again from the dead; Repenting
(i.e. turning away from) from our sins, then Receiving Him
as Saviour and Lord. This, when done genuinely, guarantees that
our sins are forgiven and our name gets written in the
Lamb’s book of life (God’s Family Album).
There is a Process - not a dead
tradition - an ever fresh and living way of coming near to God.
Although His grace allows times of emergency
prayer, in general, He’s given us a Protocol for
coming near to Him:
Ps 100:4 Enter into his gates
with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
Eph 5:18-20 And be not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19Speaking
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20Giving
thanks always for all things unto God and the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Worshipping in Spirit:
The act of worship is a spiritual thing:
it takes place at a deep, heart level. It is an intimate
thing that usually takes time to happen, similar to the act of
intimacy experienced by a married couple.
Thanksgiving and Praise, often even in adverse
circumstances or bad moods, is a sacrifice that we
willingly give to God our Creator.
Jer 33:11 11The
voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that
shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for
his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall
bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD.
Heb 13:14 15By
him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to
God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving
thanks to his name.
We give God praise if only for the reason
that He is worthy of it, regardless of our temporary and changing
feelings and surroundings. As we obediently offer up this
sacrifice to the Father, He comes to inhabit the praises of His
people (Ps 22:3) and His presence becomes tangible to His people,
or experienced. We call this manifest presence of God, “The
Anointing,” speaking of the anointing oil used in
Scripture to symbolise the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
It is at this stage that it usually becomes easier to praise
God. Often our resistance and unwillingness to praise begins
to weaken; the evil spirits that may have been oppressing or
deceiving us begin to lose their grip; even people in the meeting
who are completely “shut down” or in rebellion to God
often find their defenses crumbling against this wonderful sense
of the love and power of God. No longer is it such a sacrifice,
or effort to open our mouths in praise.
Worship in Spirit usually begins when God reveals Himself
to us; then heart-felt outpourings begin to be drawn from within
us, to the Lord. Singing and praying in the Spirit (tongues) are
especially appropriate in these times. (1 Cor 14:15 15What
is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the
understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing
with the understanding also.)
This is the source of the joy that we are
commanded to have “always” (Phil 4:4) Joy isn’t
something we psych ourselves into – it is the fruit of
obediently offering praise to God. The joy of the Lord is our
strength (Neh. 8:10) and Jesus also equates the Hebrew word for
strength (Psalm 8:2) with Praise (Matt 21:16)
Praying in the Spirit is not something we
just dust off on Sundays either. (Eph 6:18 “Praying always
with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit”) I
believe this is an important part of the true communion with God
that He intends us to have.
God loves to have fellowship with us in
worship. (2 Chron 16:9) For the eyes of the LORD run to and
fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the
behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
This enables us to have fellowship with one
another. (1 Jn 1:6,7) 7But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from
all sin.
This is where true unity is born, not
the false unity of finding the lowest common denominator in a
group of people.
Praising and worshipping God in private is
the lifeblood of our relationship with Jesus. In a corporate
congregational setting, the more people who are able, practised
and willing to worship in Spirit, the greater degree of anointing
is generally available to the church.
This is the time when God’s Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the
Spirit of Truth, loves to lead us into all truth, to reveal the
truth of His love for us, to edify, exhort and comfort us with
words of prophecy and prophetic songs, to manifest His healing
power and deliver people from demonic powers and deception.
I believe that MUSIC IS AN INTERFACE
– a connecting medium to bring us into God’s presence.
Online with God – e.g. the little TV
screens on the bottom right of computer monitor, that tell us we
are on-line, and show us that data is flowing back and forth
between the two computers.
In a place of being in the midst of
intimate, anointed worship, there is information flowing back and
forth between God’s heart and ours. That’s the process
of intimacy, where we are edified, changed, transformed.
This is when God’s Grace (His
empowering presence) is freely available and tangible, to change
us into who He wants us to be, and to equip us to get the job
done.
These times of intimacy with God are vital to the life of every
Christian. Imagine how long a marriage would last where every
morning the husband and wife would come out of their separate
rooms and shake hands. Before long their relationship would grow
stale and cold. The church of the Western world is full of
Christians in this state.
Worshipping God in Truth:
Songs:
It is important to sing songs that are true:
scripturally sound, and bringing glory to God. Are the songs you
sing focusing on people, or God? Are they exalting Jesus, or just
talking about us? As a worship leader you need to be wise in
choosing the right songs. More about this later.
Personal Integrity:
Without holiness shall no man see the
Lord (Heb 12:14) Those that live a holy life will be able to
see the Lord; not just in heaven at the end of your life, but
will be able to recognise His hand and His ways in this life.
Without a life submitted to God, keeping
short accounts with Him, we aren’t any use to a Worship
team, but rather a hindrance. No amount of spectacular
performance can achieve what simple worship in truth can. In
fact, I believe God hates outward performance, when there
is known sin hidden inside. This is the heart and soul of Religion.
An outward show, when the inward parts are full of uncleanness.
Is 29:13 Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with
their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from
me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your
feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
22Though ye offer me burnt offerings and
your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I
regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. 23Take
thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the
melody of thy viols. 24But let judgment
run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
God desires and requires us to worship
Him in Truth.
Sometimes, unfortunately, the presence of
the Lord is not experienced by congregations or individuals, for
reasons like:
·
a lack of praise (there are less and less songs of praise
to God sung these days, and more and more songs about “me
and my feelings”) or
·
not giving God room to move; we often fall into the trap of
slotting praise into tight timetables where God isn’t
welcome or free to turn up. We must remember that He is God, not
us, and He will turn up when He wants to, not when our
formulas or time slots dictate.
·
Leadership not wanting the Holy Spirit shining His
spotlight around in the meeting; because of hidden sin, prejudice
against the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, fear of the
unknown, or resistance to change. If you find yourself in this
situation, remember that the anointing oil flows downward, not
upwards. It’s not your job to resurrect your dead leaders.
Pray for them, yes.
God wants, fervently desires us to come
into His presence. He desires fellowship and intimacy with us His
people – He created us for this!
God, however, is an awesomely powerful and
Holy Being, who will not tolerate sin in His presence.
He has made a way – paid the ultimate
price for us to be able to come near
to Him – sending Jesus His precious Son, to die for us.
We have a dumping place for the sin that has beset us for so long
– a divine eraser of all the sin we confess to God –
the blood of Jesus Christ.
Having surrendered totally our old life to
Him, believing in our hearts that God raised Jesus up from the
dead, we can confidently confess the Lord Jesus before men –
unashamed of the reproach of Christ.
We can boldly come into His presence –
the King Of Kings! – much like the president’s children
walking into a high-level meeting and hopping up onto the
president’s knee.
We are built to praise Him, to publicly give
Him the glory He deserves, and as we do, He comes to inhabit
these praises, and meets with His beloved people.