I think you can measure a man's spiritual maturity and mental health simply by looking at his attitude. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "Praise is inner health made audible."
Worship is more attitude than action. More motive than motion. It is not a matter of learning techniques, but learning who Jesus is. The best thing you can do to cultivate praise and worship in your life is to find out who God is.
Worship is more state of the heart than state of the art. When it comes to worshiping Jesus, all our state-of-the-art service becomes a hindrance if it replaces Him as the object of our affection. But, when we seek Him first, we will find joy in all our service because He is all our joy.
What is acceptable worship? It is any act that proceeds from a heart that is rightly related to God, from a heart that is in submission to God, and from a heart that values God above all else. These are the components of true worship. These attitudes can transform the most mundane activities of life into an enriching experience of worship. They alone can transform time set aside for worship from meaningless mumblings into a vital contact with our Creator.
D.L. Moody once observed that "music and song have not only accompanied all scriptural revivals, but are essential in deepening one's spiritual life. Singing does at least as much as preaching to impress the Word of God upon people's minds."
In the process of meeting the need of God to be worshiped we find fulfillment. When you are singing, you are singing for God. He is the sole audience in a worship service. We say much about ourselves by our singing. Music is the barometer of the church's spiritual life. When Israel abandoned God, their song became sad. When they remained faithful to Him, their worship was full of joy. The singing in churches today reveals the same truth. Worship is vibrant when the joy of the Lord inhabits the hearts of people. Music reflects our walk with the Lord.
Singing Shows Reverence to the Lord
Paul talks of singing to the Lord. Worship may minister to those who are together, but it has at its goal sacrifice to the Lord. We are in His presence when we worship. We take ourselves before Him, offer our sacrifice of praise, and are transformed by Him. God loves to take a miserable heart and replace it with the joy and peace that comes from knowing Him. He will take away the depression and despair and replace it with a song. As you are changed by the Holy Spirit, and worship the Lord by singing His praises, our great God is glorified even more.
The Body Language of Worship
A common complaint in churches today is "I just don't get anything out of the worship." Some of the churches that offer the strongest Bible teaching have the weakest worship times. People feel like bystanders, waiting around while the minister works. The congregation must begin to be involved with the worship--people must give themselves over to the service of the Lord. It is no accident the relationship of Christ and the church is illustrated in the New Testament as that of a husband and wife. Just as in a marriage you give your body to your partner, when you make a commitment to Christ you offer Him your body. God created man with both body and soul, and He wants His children--the church--to reflect their love for Him through their bodies. He even designed rituals that require you to use your whole body in worship, namely baptism and communion. That is why the television can never replace corporate worship. God wants us together, to worship Him with our whole selves. Let's look at three positions of worship that Scripture says are pleasing to God.
The word "worship" originally meant to "bow down," so it should come as no surprise that God expects us to kneel. Paul said in Ephesians 3:14, "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." The act of bowing, or kneeling, or prostrating oneself before God is designed to be an outward expression of an inward attitude of submission, humility, and gratitude. Many of us have knelt privately in prayer, and many churches have kneeling benches so the congregation can kneel before God corporately. Some evangelicals seem to have a difficult time with this concept, but there is coming a day when "every knee should bow. . . and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11). Kneeling is very biblical and very proper.
The sign for praise in sign language is clapping. In the Old Testament, people often clapped unto the Lord. The Psalmist proclaimed, "Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph!" (Psalm 47:1). The prophet Isaiah wrote, "You shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).
People clap to express joy and appreciation to God. Sometimes people just need to release their joy--like at the end of a majestic choir number. You can't just sit there, you've got to praise God! Yes, we're appreciative of those who have lifted us in worship, but our praise is going to the Lord. Clapping is a legitimate way of praising God. All of the great festivals and celebrations in the Old Testament included clapping.
Raising hands is a real struggle for many Christians, yet there is significant support for it in Scripture. The great Bible scholar William Hendrickson once ,carefully analyzed all the occasions in the Old Testament when bodily praise was used. He found 4 instances of bowing heads, 6 references to standing with reverence, 9 examples of lifting eyes toward God who is the source of blessing, 12 instances of kneeling in adoration, 14 descriptions of hands lifted toward God, and 28 references to people laying prostrate before the Lord.
If the frequency with which these things are mentioned in the Old Testament is in any sense related to their importance, our current worship practice is exactly the opposite of what Scripture says is important. What do we do most? We bow our heads. What do we do least? Well, I don't know of many instances of Christians prostrating themselves before God. The second most common expression of praise in Scripture is lifting hands, and yet many evangelicals have never done that.
I think many Christians are afraid, thinking that hand raising is associated only with charismatic churches. That is not true. Lifting hands to the Lord has nothing to do with charismatic theology. Apparently some Christians are afraid that if they lift their hands they might start speaking in another language. Lifting the hands has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with responding to God in obedience. Christians all across the nation are discovering that it is quite alright to lift their hands.
King David once wrote, "Behold, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord" (Psalm 134:1-2). They practiced this in both the Old and New Testaments, and the Jews used seven different praise words that are derivatives from the word "hand" to describe worship in the Old Testament. The fact is, you can't even say the word "hand" in Hebrew without getting into the concept of praise. The hands of the Old Testament worshipers were so much a part of their worship that the word became a part of the language used for praising God.
Consider some of the messages our hands can convey. By our hands, we provide a symbol of our surrender to God. Suppose I were to point a gun at you and ask you to surrender. What would you do? You would raise your hands. That's the international sign of surrender. When we lift our hands to the Lord in worship, as they did in the Old Testament, it is a way of saying, "Lord, I give up to You. It's not my agenda any more, Lord. It's whatever You want. I surrender."
They tell me babies are born with their fists clenched. That's appropriate for sinful man. Babies want what they want, when they want it. That's why you get up at two in the morning to take care of them. If clenched fists are a way of saying, "I want my way," open hands are a way of saying, "Lord, have Your way."
Open hands are a sign of trust in God. Businessmen have learned that your body language expresses a great deal about what you're thinking. If you come to me with a great idea and I listen with my arms folded and a scowl on my face, you already know that I'm not excited about the proposal. We can, by our body language, express openness to one another. When we come to the Lord with open hands, we are expressing trust in Him. It's like saying, "Lord, here are my hands. Put them wherever You want. Take from them whatever You choose. I love and trust You, Lord, and I have nothing to hide."
Open hands can be a sign that we are seeking God. Some people praise God with their hands cupped, waiting for God to bless them. Psalm 28:2 says, "Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands toward Your Holy sanctuary." This is the picture of a person coming and just waiting for the Lord's blessing.
You know, the last picture the apostles had of Jesus Christ was with His hands raised. In the Book of Luke, we are told Jesus took his disciples to Bethany, lifted up His hands and blessed them. "While He blessed them,. . . He was parted from them and carried up into Heaven" (24:51). Jesus went back into the presence of Almighty God with His hands lifted up. We should be willing to lift our hands to Him in praise and honor.
Did you know that Satan is allergic to praise? Wherever there is massive, triumphant praise he is paralyzed, bound and banished.
Amy Carmichael said, "I believe truly that Satan cannot endure praise and worship, so he slips out of the room while it is going on."
You can render Satan inoperative by praising God! No wonder Paul and Silas sang and praised God at midnight in the Philippian jail. No wonder Jonah, laying in the belly of the whale began to worship and give thanks to God. It was so contrary to the atmosphere that the whale couldn't stand it and vomited him up on the beach. Worship is powerful warfare.
When your heart faces the imponderable, that is when you most need the Lord. When you are in the low point of life, facing times of discouragement and unanswered questions, grab hold of the truths you know about God. You worship the one you trust, and you trust the one you know. If you don't know Him well, you can't trust Him, and you won't be able to worship Him fully.
It is in those moments when you fee least like worshiping God that you must worship Him. In the process of elevating your praise to the Lord, you are lifted into the presence of God. God causes everything to make sense when you see it in light of His eternal sovereignty.
In the Lord's prayer we find this kind of perspective. The Lord Jesus begins and ends with an eternal perspective: "Our Father, in Heaven," and "For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever" (Matthew 6:9-13). If you start and end your prayers with an eternal perspective, you can pray your heart in the middle. That prayer will lift you out of the mire of you own situation and put you on solid ground. If you don't pray like that in your worship, you'll only feel more depressed than ever. We come first of all to bring honor and glory to the Lord, and in doing so we glimpse His mighty power. Suddenly, everything begins to make sense. That lifts the burden and gives control to God, and then you experience the joy of worshiping One greater than yourself. As you learn to praise God better in your own private life, your church will begin to praise Him better corporately. In the act of worshiping God, we become healthy believers. Instead of being blown about by every wind of experience or circumstance, we see life from God's perspective and we can walk an even course.
Worship God, and your life will never be the same.
Recite the Lord's prayer: "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen." Matthew 6:9-13
- Some of this information was acquired from Dr. David Jeremiah.
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