A Time For Praise And Worship

J

immy was a bit confused.  He had made the varsity football team without question but he was having a difficult time making sense of the coach’s letter informing him of the upcoming practice schedule.   Each day’s practice began precisely at 9:00 and he was to report to the locker room at 8:30 to dress out in his pads and practice uniform.  All of this information seemed perfectly logical to Jimmy, who had been playing football since he was six years old.

The information concerning practice times was followed by a brief explanation of how each practice would be conducted.  The players were to take the field at 9:00 for warm-up exercises. This, however, is not what caused Jimmy’s confusion.  Pre-practice exercising was standard and to be expected.  The source of the confusion was one brief statement made by the coach in the middle of this paragraph.  The statement read, “You will exercise your muscles for thirty minutes and then you will play a full game.”

The words, “and then” bothered Jimmy terribly.  Wasn’t playing the same thing as exercising?  Wasn’t’ he using every fiber of his body to play the game just has he had used those muscles during warm-up?  How could there be only a thirty-minute practice session?  Did the coaches not want him to exercise his body during the game?  If this were the case, the season would be a long one and not very productive.

Jimmy’s dilemma may seem a bit elementary but when you stop and think about it, he does ask a good question.  What about playing a football game is not exercise?  A player on the field must be in constant motion, using all his muscles, all his knowledge, all his mind, and all his heart to give his best performance.  He must do this from the beginning of the game to its end if he intends to be victorious.  Otherwise, he will probably find himself on the bench watching the game instead of participating in it.

There seems to be a growing trend in our churches that can be equally confusing to worshipers.  Bulletins and orders of service from all types of churches more and more set aside a special time in their services called, “Praise and Worship.”  Now, let’s stop and think about this for just a moment and we will find ourselves in the same predicament as Jimmy.  Can praise and worship be relegated to a specific time or to a specific place in our services?  What about the remainder of the service is not praise and worship?

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am not being critical of preparing people for worship.  However, I find it confusing to separate praise and worship into small segments.  The entire service, especially the sermon and prayer time, should be a time when we praise and worship God.  In fact, there should be no time in our lives when God is not praised and worshiped.

David said as much in Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.  Here, David gives us the correct perspective on praise and worship.  We are to continually praise and worship God. In fact, our lives are to be a source of continual praise and worship of our Lord.  There is no time when we should cease to praise God and we should make praise and worship our lifestyle.  Worship should not simply be something we do; but it must emanate from who we are on the inside.  We must worship God in spirit and in truth, as Jesus told the woman at the well, or we do not worship Him at all.

   

Although true worship is what God wants us to offer Him the mere act of worshiping, of just going through the motions, does not make us worshipers. True worship must come from the heart from an intimate knowledge of who God is and what He has done for us. Our worship, then, should dictate our actions instead of our actions dictating our worship.

As we seek to enter into more effective and God-centered worship in our churches, let us remember that we are to worship God always.  Worship is not to be found in a building and we cannot look to the pastor to do worship for us.  We should pray for him and look to him as he leads us in corporate worship.  But if we don’t worship personally, if there is no worship in our daily lives, if we don’t take time individually to worship and praise God, then there will be no true praise and worship in our churches.  We must worship individually if we are to worship corporately.  How is your praise and worship time coming today?