We often talk about praise and worship at church but tend to think they are the same. I used to think that praise and worship were only for people with angelic voices when the truth is one doesn’t necessarily have to be a singer to praise and worship God. Praise and worship are acts of love and since we are called to “love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength” Mark 12:30, when we praise and worship God, we do it with all that we have including our voices. Though praise and worship may sound similar, I have learned that they are different, and you do not need to be a singer to praise and worship God.
The Bible says in Psalm 150:6 “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” So, breath is all we need to praise Him. We praise God, glorify Him, exalt Him, and Bless His name for who He is. We don’t even have to have an experience with God to praise Him. For example, we know God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and we don’t have to have an experience with Him to know that He is also a sustainer; just by looking at the sky, we can see that there are no poles, no wires holding it together and no strings attached to the clouds to prevent them from falling. Therefore, we have plenty of evidence that proves that God is the Creator of all things, He is Alpha, Omega, good, faithful, etc. that’s why we praise Him for who He is.
Also, we learn to praise God during our storms because He is all that He is 24/7 and 7 days a week and He never ceases to be our Father. He is all that He is in the summer as well as in the Winter because who He is doesn’t change and will never change regardless of our circumstances so why should our praise and worship change based on the circumstances that we are in? We should always praise God because we are still here, which means that the air in our lungs has been supplied faithfully. Though it is easier said than done to continue to praise God in times of difficulties, we need to remember that it’s in the storms that our faith and trust in Him is being tested. And it is during the trials, that our love for Him and relationship with Him is tried. No one wants to have a friendship with someone simply because of what he or she can do for that person. That wouldn’t be a genuine friendship; so is our relationship with God!
On the other hand, worshiping God is much more intimate. I think it is difficult to worship God without experiencing Him. Worshiping God has to do with what He has done for us and who He has revealed Himself in our lives and situations. We need our memory drive to worship God because we need to remember the blessings and miracles of the past. God would say things like: “…. Do not forget your God, the land of Egypt where I have brought you from the hardships….” Deuteronomy 8: 11-20. So, He would often ask His people not to forget what they have witnessed in the past concerning Him, which means they must remember.
I don’t think God is asking us to worship Him because He will cease to be God if we don’t, but I think it has more to do with helping us with our spiritual memory. And why does this even matter? It matters because God knows that spiritual amnesia can easily lead us astray and since God loves us too much to let us be led astray and because He doesn’t want to keep bringing us back, sometimes the hard way, to where we are supposed to be, He demands something called “worship.” So, you and I need to remember what God has done for us in our past so we can worship Hin in our present; which means to remember that if it had not been for Him, we wouldn’t be cancer-free today, our children wouldn’t still be alive today, our marriages would have been destroyed, our cars repossessed, foreclosure homes and we wouldn’t have a roof over our heads today, we would have lost our minds with no food to eat, water to drink, clothes to wear and most importantly no air in our lungs.
We do not praise and worship God because we are trying to keep up with what He says, we praise and worship Him because He deserves all glory. He worked hard for this; He bled and gave up His life. For example, I have heard people say that others have accidentally died instead of their loved ones before. In other words, what is so special about Jesus’s death? Yes, this type of death has indeed happened before, but no one other than Jesus would plan His death, talk about it, and go through the shameful process of it innocently for the sake of strangers and sinners who had no interest in Him and no understanding of His sacrifice and yet still chose to do it anyway just to save us from our merited death, I think there is a big difference here. God has proven Himself good and faithful in our lives when we don’t even deserve it; therefore, all glory truly belongs to Him.
SCRIPTURES
“If it were His intention and He withdrew His spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together, and mankind would return to the dust.” Job 34: 14-15
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103: 2-5
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