Prepared To Worship

“My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise His holy name for ever and ever.”  Psalm 145:21

‘Praise the Lord!’ It’s certainly one of the most repeated phrases in a Christian’s vocabulary, especially when it comes to corporate worship times. And rightly so, because He is worthy of all praise. But how often do those words seem somehow empty when we say them? How often do they just kind of roll off our lips without much real thought? Sometimes, as much as we want them to be, our hearts really aren’t there and we are speaking more because we know how we are supposed to feel about God. To say ‘praise God’ simply because we are told to praise Him hardly seems to qualify as worship! But what’s wrong? Are we bad people who say things we really don’t mean? Not necessarily. Here’s something really important to keep in mind - worship in the Bible is always responsive.

“All true worship is a response to the self-revelation of God in Christ and Scripture, and arises from our reflection on Who He is and what He has done. The worship of God is evoked, informed and inspired by the vision of God.”  John Stott

Worship; true worship, the worship God is looking for, is ‘evoked’. Priority must then be placed on knowing God and experiencing His greatness in our lives. When we gather for corporate worship, how often do we come ready to worship? The best corporate worship experiences must get their start before we even come together because the best corporate worship happens when our hearts have already been prepared. The best corporate worship times happen when we have already worshiped God in our private worship times. Those are times of simply reading the Word and praying for God to show Himself to us. When we see God for who He really is and what He has done, our hearts will rise up within us and we will worship Him. 

So, the next time you see Sunday coming, make it an intentional effort to seek God’s preparatory work in your heart and see what kind of difference it makes. And prepare to be amazed!