Praise and Worship - Really?

Recently I have become profoundly cognizant of my deep inner need to come before my Lord in true worship.  Consequently I have simultaneously begun paying close attention to my thoughts, actions and heart when I am coming before Him to either praise Him or worship Him.  I question my motives and my posture.  I am now asking myself the W questions: where am I worshipping Him, why am I worshipping Him, when am I worshipping Him.  Then I pose the same questions for praise.  In order to answer these questions accurately, I must first define what these two words are: praise and worship.  What do they really mean?

What are the first things that come into your mind when you hear the word, "worship"?  Do you think about church and your weekly service?  Do you by chance think, "oh yeah, that is the leader's responsibility.  I am here to join in."  I hope not.  I pray that you have already embraced the real meaning of worship.  One of the easiest ways to describe worship is to utilize the illustration of pagan gods.  Seriously.   Pagans were well known to "worship" multiple gods.  Their many temples and complex rituals illustrated how extensive their worship was.  They had household gods and altars within their homes that permitted them to worship these gods frequently, privately and as the need arose.  The worship of their gods dominated their lives.  Was their worship relegated to occurring inside the temple on a routine basis?  I think not.  They were obsessed with their gods and their worship was continual.  

Now think about the early Hebrew people as they were leaving Egypt.  Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron "Go and worship the Lord as you have requested. Take the flocks and the herds, as you said, and be gone.  Go, but bless me as you leave."  Exodus 12:31-32  What did Pharaoh picture when he gave that command?  Remember that the Hebrew people had been enslaved by a pagan nation for 400 years.  Did the Hebrew people themselves even know how to worship their Lord?  I wonder. Once in the wilderness, though they quickly fell back into the patterns with which they had lived for centuries.  They had yet to grasp what the Lord was seeking from them.  Once they had escaped the Egyptian army via the Red Sea, they sang a song of deliverance.  Their worship at that moment was a combination of praise, testimony and worship of the greatness of God.  (Exodus 15).  They weren't in a church, or a synagogue or a temple.  They were standing out in the middle of the wilderness and God had just established that HE was there.  Worship erupted!  Praise of His glory erupted!  

Has God ever moved in your life?  Does that initiate worship and praise?  I don't mean the put out the fire at the last possible minute - although He has certainly done that for me as well as many folks I know.  I mean has He ever moved in your life?  Do you only praise Him at that moment or does it become another component of your ongoing worship?  Do you continually add to His countless attributes of magnificence and worship Him?  Worship is a lifestyle. It is not a weekly act of offering up music and songs.  Our very words spoken daily, our acts in daily life, are our sacrifices of worship.  Do we indeed lay our lives on the altar of worship and sacrifice ourselves to Him?  Ephesians 5:18-20 Let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. Then you will sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music to the Lord in your hearts. And you will always give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I wonder if we truly grasp that last verse - How do we not grasp "always" and "everything"?

Finally, consider praise as a weapon.  Psalm 149:6-9  Let the praises of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands -- to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with shackles and their leaders with iron chains, to execute the judgment written against them. This is the glory of his faithful ones. Praise the LORD!  Do you see praise as a powerful weapon in your spiritual tool belt?  God has declared it so.  Are we using it that way, or do we simply see praise as saying "Thanks,God."  Look at all the attributes that God used in this psalm to describe praise.  We cannot use these attributes if all we are doing is coming to Him with a grateful heart.  We need to be declaring His power, His authority and using the testimony of His word as the fuel for these praises.  Not our words - His words!  We must be warriors in our praise and our worship.  Please don't be passive and don't enable performance oriented worship.  This is about Him and not about us or someone's musical talents.  They are only background vehicles to ushering in His presence, but our hearts and our openness to His power being exhibited through us is critical!!!! 

I don't think I will allow myself to approach my relationship with Him the same from this point forward.  The times when I come together with my brothers and sisters in Christ for corporate praise should pale by comparison to that which I share daily with my Lord and the Lover of my soul.  Everything I do up to that moment should be building to a wonderful crescendo. All of us coming together would hopefully be building to the same crescendo like a wonderful orchestra in which each instrument has been played daily, individually, so that when we come together it is an orchestrated sound that pleases God's ears and His heart. Is this what your worship experience is like?  Is this how you praise the Lord?  If not then let us all come into agreement that the Lord will never hear anything less than that from us again.  Hallelujah!!!!