Are Praise and Worship Simply to Butter-Up?

(photo courtesy of christcenteredmall.com)

Jesus Himself said, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is a spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24 (NIV)

Praise and worship is not to be used to “butter up” our Father. It’s given from a pure heart that wants nothing more than to climb up on to His lap and to love on Him and to take in His love. It’s not something we put out there trying to manipulate Him into giving us the things we want. He knows our hearts, our thought and intentions; do we really think we can our smart Him or put together a magic formula to make things go the way we want them to?

There are so many things I don’t understand. There are so many things I’d do differently than God is doing them – but only because I don’t always know why He’s doing them the way He does. I know that He sees the whole of everything, and that I merely catch glimpses of His kingdom as He sees it. Since I don’t see the end from the beginning like He does, I can’t possibly expect to see clearly why He does what He does, when He does it.

How many times have you said, or heard said, “Well, if I was God ____________”?

I’m relieved that none of us is God, with our limited scope of everything, we’d surely mess things up. And how many of us would have thought of grace all by ourselves?

The Psalmist wrote, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” Psalm 100:4 (NIV) He didn’t give us this instruction as a magic wand to gain entrance to the throne room of God for our own personal venues.

As Christians, we’re told, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…..” Ephesians 2:6 (NIV)

We not only have permission to enter the God’s throne room, spiritually speaking, we’re sitting there already, with Jesus our Savior, as joint heirs with Him. God welcomes our thanks, our praise, our worship, our love, our obedience – and yearns to take us in His arms and love us in ways we still feel so unworthy to receive.

Twice in the gospels Jesus says, “…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Matthew 23:27 & Luke 13:34 (NIV)

Let’s let go of our inhibitions, and like David, dance before the Lord, thanking Him, praising Him, honoring Him and worshiping Him with all that’s within us!

Matthew 6:33 tells us that when we seek first the kingdom of God, everything else will be given to us. So why do we seek the things and ignore the kingdom?