The Power Of Worship

Singing praises to God or worshiping him opens up a window to heaven. As your praise reaches the heart of God, it becomes a two way stream of communication. As you touch God with your praise, his Holy Spirit touches you and ministers to you. Praise and worship can also open the door to blessings from God.

We praise God because he is worthy of all praise. He is the maker of Heaven and earth and the entire universe. He has given us life and through his son has saved us from eternal damnation. He loves us completely despite of our short comings and sinful nature.

Probably the best examples of how to worship the Lord can be seen in the life and Psalms of King David.

God described David as “a man after his own heart”. David loved God and God loved David. David had a wonderful musical talent and regularly came before the Lord in songs of love and thanksgiving. He danced and played music to praise God. In (2 Sam 6:14-15) it says

“And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet”. (KJV)

David wrote beautiful words to express his deep devotion and love for God. David actively pursued God, and desired to have a close personal relationship with him. This is demonstrated in (Psa 57:7 –10) where he writes

“My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds”. (KJV)

When we praise God we are allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through us directly to our Father in Heaven. The Holy Spirit’s presence can be felt right inside of us and surrounding us as we speak to the Father through him. I have heard many times of healings taking place when people have been worshiping God, and I believe this is because the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon them and ministers to their needs while they are praising God.

There are several different Hebrew words used in the Bible to denote praise and worship. These can be translated into the following English meanings.

Worship - To fall down prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God), to bow down, crouch, fall down flat, humbly beseech, make or do obeisance, do reverence or to stoop.

Praise - Literally to use (that is, hold out) the hand; to revere or worship (with extended hands); intensively to bemoan (by wringing the hands): give thanks, rejoice; a celebration of thanksgiving for harvest, to kneel; by implication to bless God (as an act of adoration) or congratulate.

The main difference between worship and praise is that we worship God for who he is, and praise him for what he has done.

You will see that many of these translations display the theme of humility – of coming before God in subservience and in reverence of his awesome power. We are not praising him as we would a child who has done well, from the viewpoint of someone who is older and wiser – we are to praise him out of our total unworthiness to even be in his presence. In humility we need to grasp the magnitude of his awesome power, love and grace and praise him for them. We need to praise him for loving us despite of how unworthy we are of his love. We need to lift his name on high, not because of who we are, but because of who he is.

For more articles related to this subject and others please visit Raise-Praise.com

Awesome free Bible quotations

Give, and it shall be given to you. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return... Read More

Great free information - praise & worship articles

A frazzled family was rushing around one morning, trying to get out the door to church, knowing they were already going to be late. “Don’t worry, mom,” their adolescent son said. “I don’t like the singing anyway.” “Oh,” cautioned the mom. “That’s the most important part.” “It is?” replied the child. “I thought we were there to hear a sermon.” “No!” said the... Read More

Our Creator certainly deserves our worship. He is worthy of it, and due the honor. The fascinating truth is that we need worship more than He does! “Wait a minute. When I praise the Lord, that is my gift to him. How does that benefit me?” When we enter into a time of prayer not for the purpose of requesting things, we’re really worshiping. We’re thanking Him for saving us, for what He’s done in our lives, and what we’re expecting Him to do. We’re adoring His attributes. We’re marveling at His creation. We’re claiming our commitment to Him. We’re...Read More

At our church children aren’t always with adults during praise and worship time. Often they are attending age-appropriate services where the message and music are geared for them. Although relaxing for parents, I believe we all miss out on something by not worshiping together...Read More

Our faith should be growing every day. Did you know that worship helps our faith grow? How? During worship we: Acknowledge God owns everything; Function confidently, knowing He’s in control; Understand that He gives and takes away and love Him regardless; Express thanks no matter the situation; Sing and speak praises to Him in rough times just as in the good times; Are quick to obey; Bold to witness; Are quick to submit to Him and others...Read More

Sometimes we are so inhibited. We cover ourselves up. We hang blinds and curtains on our windows. We tint our vehicle windows. We keep to ourselves, don’t dare to be real with others and don’t nurture deep, meaningful relationships even with our Christ Jesus Lord. On the flip side, some of us walk around indecently exposed; we express ourselves very freely through dress, hairstyles, body piercing and tattoos, pickets, and boycotts. So why do we find it difficult to...Read More

For three years while I was a worship pastor almost every week someone from the congregation would bring up the issue of Hymn's vs. Choruses. Some members wanted more hymns, some wanted more choruses, some wanted hymns sung like choruses and some wanted less hymns and less "old" chorus songs so that we could do more "new" stuff...Read More

The Nature Of Prayer, And How We Use It. In our modern world of science, we’re sometimes tempted to think of prayer, petition, and merit as a mathematic equation. “Pray about X for Y number of hours, fasting for W days, and X will be answered.” We’ve come to expect an immediate answer to our problems…like a simple program that has occasional bug, but generally works well with a few clicks of the mouse...Read More

Prayer definitely works and is still working today as it did thousands of years ago. There are many that have experienced it's power. Just when you wonder when are things going to get better...prayer gets answered! And most of the time it will be better results than what you imagined! A powerful true experience of what prayer can do for those...Read More

Finding time to pray after becoming a mother has been challenging. I find myself consumed with the daily tasks of laundry, dishes, house cleaning, chauffeuring, etc. At the end of the day I’m tired from the full day of activities. The extra time I once devoted to prayer or bible study has been consumed by children and family duties...Read More

God speaks loudest when we’re quiet. You’ve heard it said that God gave us two ears and only one mouth for a reason. Logically, it should be easier for us to speak half as much and listen two times more, right? It is an unfortunate tendency of our human nature to use prayer time as an opportunity to purge all our transgressions, frustrations...Read More

Joel 2 verse 17 "Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?"...Read More