Monday, June 12, 2006

Entering His gates with Praise

It was a very busy weekend this last couple of days, so it was absolutely heaven to be in church on Sunday and experience a wonderful time of worship with my local family of believers. In this meme one of the questions was "What turns you on spiritually?" and for me it is worship. Nothing draws me in, changes my heart, refreshes me, makes me open to what God's word says more than spending time worshipping Him. And I get absolutely thrilled when I see others enter into His presence also, not looking to see what others might be thinking but singing and lifting their hands, some bowing or kneeling. There is a young woman at our church who uses flags and banners and dances beautifully before the Lord. It has moved me to tears at times.

When my heart is hard toward something or someone, when I'm seeking God on His word, when I need direction for my life, if I spend time praising and worshipping my Creator, He does something in my heart that causes me to be more open to His words, to His leading & guiding. It builds my faith and makes Him a very real presence in my everyday life.

When we worship we are giving the Lord the worthiness, respect, reverence and honor that is due Him. When I put my flesh aside and no matter how I'm feeling and give Him the praise that He is due simply for who He is, I am lifted up. What a wonderful thing God has ordained. We were created to worship Him but at the same time He lifts us up when we do. Now how cool is that!

So I was really thrilled today to see so many posts up first thing this morning about worship. Carol at She Lives talked about coming as a child and worshipping with abandon,
Island Sparrow at A Sparrow's Home talked of worshipping being a missing jewel, and
Lauren at Created for His Glory posted a pic of worship for a photo scavenger hunt who's theme was community. Go check these out!!

And I'd like to know what you think of worshipping our God. Leave it in the comment section or if you've posted on worship and I've missed it mention that in your comment so we can scoot over and read it.

And to close just a few scriptures on worship:

Revelation 4:11 "Worthy are You, our Lord and our God to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created."

Psalm 66:4 "All the earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You; They will sing praises to Your Name"

6 comments:

Heather Smith said...

Hey Susanne,
Here are a few links to some Thursday Thirteens I've done about praise. Obviously praise is very important to God! Thanks for the reminder to me to praise Him today!
Go here and here!

Anonymous said...

I feel the same way about worship as you do, seeing others praise God with their hands held high, eyes closed and tears always thrills me. And yes it softens my heart toward what God is trying to tell me too. Thanks for the link.

Carol said...

ACK!! I accidently posted with the TLB username 'cause I was trying to set up a blog for the band.

Sorry. My bad. TLB be me.

Kari said...

Thanks for a wonderful post on worship! Just what I needed and "amazingly" at the right time!!! I'm looking for a little spiritual input on a struggle I'm having. When you can... stop by and lend me your thoughts.

Susanne said...

Heather: thanks for sharing those. I couldn't scroll past #4 on the second one though.

Carol: that's funny. When I read the post I thought that sounds like what Carol might say and they play guitar, too. Thanks for sharing!

Lauren: It's a beautiful sight, isn't it.

MommaB: thanks for the encouragement. I'll pop by tomorrow.

Pam said...

I so agree with everyone's perspective that your heart has to be in the right place for the worship to be sincere. I find if I am trying to put myself ahead of the Holy Spirit, I miss the beauty of offering my worship as a sacrifice of praise and end up feeling empty.

If I allow my worship to come from the overflow of my heart, I walk away blessed every time.