“Worship the Lord with gladness; come
before him with joyful songs.” Psalm 100:2
We’ve recently been studying
about God's Character in Sunday school. It has made my heart full and reminded me how
wonderful, holy, loving and mighty God is. He deserves our praise
and worship given by all that
we are. In fact in Mark 12:30, Jesus tells us to “love the Lord
your
God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your
strength.” He stresses every
aspect, leaving no question that every part of who we are is to be
entirely for God. If we love
Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength as we are
commanded, wouldn’t we
worship with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?
Psalm 9:2 "I will be glad
and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name. O Most
High."
Psalm 35:9, 10 "Then my
soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation. My
whole
being
will exclaim, "Who is like you, Lord?" (Emphasis mine)
Psalm 86:12 "I will praise
you, Lord my God, with ALL my heart; I will glorify your name
forever."
Did you notice the word
"rejoice" in both the first and second verses? And "with all
my heart" in the third? Our worship time, especially
with other believers, should be a joyful time of rejoicing in the
Lord and we should praise him
with all our hearts. Yes, we may come to church with burdens
and heartaches, but worship is
about God, not about us. When we lay ourselves aside in order
to worship God, everything else
fades in comparison to our realization of who
we are praising.
God is still God, no matter
what problems we are facing. He still deserves our praise and
worship.
When we come together in
worship to sing praises to God, let's prepare our hearts, really
listen
to the words of the songs and
remind ourselves that God is so worthy of our praise. He
deserves our ALL! To prepare
our hearts, reading scripture about praise and worship is a good
place to start. So is studying about God's character. Try using the
Bible app or other resources to suggest verses to read. When we take our minds off of
ourselves or others around us
and put our mind on God and his goodness, we glorify him and
fill our hearts as well.