One Is Not The Other… We’re going to talk a little bit about Praise and Worship here… Praise: To express Approval and Admiration; of Homage in Words and Song; Commend and Extol Someone Publically and Enthusiastically Worship: Reverence and Honor Paid to God; Love and Devotion… *I would like to Add: Focused Praise to the extreme of Praise that Pushes Us into True Worship Have you ever noticed that sometimes we can be in a church setting and the atmosphere is full of song and dance, joy and praise? When this happens do you feel the hand of God through the Holy Spirit coming in and getting ready to settle upon us, and then all of a sudden…BOOM!!! The music changes, the rhythm broken and the mind and body just feel snatched from the Kingdom of Heaven. Now we think, “How can this be? How can we even think about this praise and worship thing if we don’t even know how to reverence God?” Then after a moment, the man comes in and starts to speak ‘his’ message. Do we then honor God by clapping for the speaker and giving him a standing ovation? What happened to that beautiful moment we were in? Can we please just go back to that spot? Hardly likely at this point, because the message seems so much more important than properly giving God the Glory… It’s like the church today only wants to go so far and forgot what praise and worship is really about. Now at that, God only hears static and noise by the time it reaches His ears. WOW!!! It should be all about bringing in the comforter, the Holy Ghost, but most don’t even have a clue how to do it. They are unaware of how they praise and worship! And as far as praise and worship leaders go today, it’s all about the praise baby!!! And how many high notes they can hit in a single song!! Fighting for vocal supremacy!! OH what a show! Yup… How long has it been since we’ve seen an entire congregation on their knees? Getting down and dirty before the Lord? Just wailing before the Lord? Crying and slobbering…going through a full box of tissue…This is worship my friends. “Oh No… We can’t have that now can we, people are looking”, HHMMM… Psalm 107:8-9, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for His wonderful works.” We see here that the people of God even for 1000’s of years before us spoke to God at a very personal level, as Paul tell us in Ephesians 5:19, “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and Hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart ‘TO THE LORD’!” So what’s this telling us? What it’s basically saying is, as the Lord speaks it, “Praise Me all day long, in your heart and keep your mind ‘in’ Me, you’ll be better for it!” I personally enjoy the fact that I can praise God all day long, in any situation. But to really really reverence the Lord it takes a focus that goes waaay beyond praise, a focus that completely removes us from any scenario. Think about it; did David write, “Bless the Lord Oh my soul”, just to make a million $ out of it? I think He really meant what he said in earnest and with complete honesty. Ready for this? Psalm 135:1, 3, 21, 138:1, 2, 4… Get the picture? David speaks of praising the Lord over 160 times in the book of Psalms alone! So now, after hearing this, don’t you think it’s a pretty important factor for bringing the Lord into our presence? As He is always present? That we come into His presence? Sorry, I can’t just stop here, I want the veil. I want the essence, can you feel it? On the verge of something really big? Don’t let that be taken away! We need to worship, deep worship, ugly on our knees crying and bellowing worship, till we can’t stand up worship…not just praise Him and then stop. Like I said, I can praise anywhere, my car, shopping, at work, even playing sports, but to worship? Back up now, I’m gonna get selfish with this one,,, I WANNA GO IN! I wanna give God my undivided attention, as He gives Me His! HIM! ALL THE GLORY!! TO MY GOD PERSONALLY!!! How do we do this might you ask? Just remove yourself from yourself, ask the Lord to take it all away, tell Him you need complete rest in Him, ask Him for His love, His rest, by the Blood, because your his son, daughter, peace…joy…rest… This is where the miracles start to happen… Do this and believe, and He will fill all of us with all His works, as we are on one accord, each asking individually, but being as one. As we take a look in the New Testament, check out the word ‘accord’ and then ‘one accord’ because we become ‘one’ through complete selflessness of our worship. Praise can’t seem to get us here, sorry, but it is what it is. This whole ‘one accord’ thing takes us to a whole new level. At this point, God comes in, fills the Temple, and just takes over everything. Whatever is needed at that point for His Glory, He will use His servants, all of them, not just the Pastor, or whoever is behind the pulpit at the time. So you see how this would be detrimental to what the speaker wants to lead you into… A smart leader would let the Hoky Ghost flow, as he would find the Lord would use him to the completeness of all capacities. Acts 2:1, “And they were ‘all’ with ‘one accord’.” Accord meaning: To bring into agreement, or, now listen to this: TO BE CONSISTANT OR IN COMPLETE HARMONY. I’m really liking that definition right there! ‘In’ ‘COMPLETE HARMONY’ with the Spirit of God! It doesn’t have to be vocal, or physical, as many try to portray through praise and worship teams, just ‘HARMONY’ WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD! Wow!!! I want Him to take the lead and lead me into song and dance, lead me into the Holy Holies! Pushing past the crowds and the priests that just do not want to move!! Again, that’s when the miracles are gonna happen! ‘One Accord’! HALLELUJAH!!! Alright, let me get back to the word ‘Worship’: Most of the upper echelon in the church don’t want to bring it to this because they either don’t know how, or because they feel they need to be in control. They want the ‘amens’ and the ‘clapping’ and want to ‘bring people ‘in’ by leading the praise. I would just assume leave the service than continue under the control of man, I can accomplish all the praise and worship just as well at home, and probably as the Lord says, “Be better for it.” And I’ll know He’ll press me right to the floor. Matthew 4:10, “Thou shalt worship the Lord and Him only shalt thou serve”, and another, John 4:22, “Ye worship ye know not what.” It seems to be the church today, but if we do as Jesus commands, and worship like this, verse 23, “But the time is coming- AND IS HERE- when true worshippers will worship in both Spirit and in truth.” And the truth is we can’t come completely into worship if we try to bring the flesh along! “The Father looks for us”, Yes us, “To worship in this way.” Keep reading and we’ll see the truth of truths in praise and worship here. Example: We can’t come into praise and worship in the Spirit if our eyes are open and focused on what someone else wore to church that day! OOOF! O.K., verse 24, the big one here for this particular word, “GOD IS SPIRIT, AND IT IS NECESSRAY TO ‘WORSHIP’ GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.” I dare you to just keep your eyes closed a whole church service and just focus on what God has in store for you and you alone. Better yet do it at home as much as possible, kick people out of your house if you have to, it’s between you and God, or get together in ‘one accord’. Amazing things will happen I can assure you. We have no choice in this day and age to do it this way, especially now with all this superficial praise and worship going on. This is why God stays His hand and does not truly take hold of us, anytime we come to Him, especially when we are gathered. Just shut your eyes and go in without them. Praise gets us there, worship gets us in…Especially into the prophetic, but that’s another story, so I’ll leave that one on the table for right now. We can’t just say we’re saved and then move on. We have to stay in salvation, and a great way to keep our minds on it is to praise God like Psalm 95:1-5, and worship like verse 6-7! Worship with all our mind, our heart, and our soul! Now you might ask, “What will that do for us?” It will help us, “Throw off any extra baggage, and get rid of the sin that trips us up,” and help us, “Focus and fix our eyes upon Jesus, who is faith’s pioneer and perfector!” AAAmen for this word!!! PRAISE GOD TODAY AND EVERY DAY THAT YOU FIND PEACE IN PRAISE & WORSHIP!!! In Jesus name… AMEN!!!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 21:21:11 +0000
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