Praise

     How then should we praise God?
     What a humongous subject! And how many different opinions! There are churches that have split over this very subject and churches that been created over the difference of opinions!
     And God wants me to write a blog about it? Now I can totally grasp what Moses felt...I am the least of all! I am one woman, with no congregation to teach or lead~ nobody(I mean NOBODY!) will listen to me! I can't even get my family to listen to me!
     I was overcome by the Holy Spirit yesterday during our church praise service, I was shouting! and I have a tough time shouting even when the Pastor tells everyone to shout! Now here I am, tackling a subject like "Praise" including shouting! And raising hands!... At first, when God put this on my heart, I thought I should go through Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and look up each reference to the word "praise", and let me tell you, there are a lot of references! I learned that Judah means praise and that when the Hebrews started planting in a new area of land, they were to let the fruit from their new trees go for three years and the fourth year they were to give the fruit to God as a praise offering. Who knew!? Side note here, did you know we're still supposed to give praise offerings to God? Yes, that is one form of praise to give up something that we desire and cherish~ I'm telling you, those people were looking forward to tasting the fresh fruit from those trees, but they gave it to God! Not part of it, all of it! That is one way to praise.
     But, if I study and become well versed in all the places that praise is used in scripture then I'll write from my own understanding and education, that would not serve God's purpose here (it would just serve mine). God likes to use the weak and foolish, so I do fit His purpose!
     I can write from what I do know, I know that we sing songs claiming that we wait for God and then we give Him a few minutes on Sunday morning to show up, and if He doesn't, then we move on to the next phase of our Sunday routine. I know we say His name is above all names and is worth all praise, we say that our heart sings "How great is our God", then we start checking the time when we think church should be over? How sincere is our praise when we're feeling put out that church is running too long? or when our arms hang limp by our sides, or we stuff our hands in our pockets? Didn't God say to raise our hands in praise?(Psalm 64:1-4) Are we more concerned about what the people around us might think of us if we do raise our hands? What about what God thinks of us? Remember He does see your heart and He knows why you refuse to raise your hands~
     Did God ever tell us a time frame we should allow for praise or a service where we come to seek to draw closer to Him? (Did you know that in some countries people walk for hours to be present at a service lifted to God's glory? They don't even ask who is speaking, they just want to praise God! and be in His presence and with His people! They LOVE God and are drawn to whatever He is doing! Time and inconvenience is not important to them, only God is!)
     We say that "we proclaim that our God reigns!". Do we know what proclaiming means? The definition says it is to "assert", "proclaim". But do we really proclaim that our God "reigns"?
     Let's compare this to a husband-wife relationship, how many wives would feel loved or appreciated if their husbands showed their love quietly in their heart and it never left their mouths? Or how many husbands would believe their wives loved them if the wife put their meals out on the table and while the husband was washing His hands and enjoying the aroma of the meal, his wife cleared the table and said "time is up, I put it out there 15 minutes ago and you didn't sit down, so I thought you wasn't coming to eat!" Isn't that what we often do to God? Is that anyway to praise?
     Yes, God knows our thoughts, but words are important to Him also, He didn't think the world into being, Genesis doesn't speak of God thinking and then it happened, it says "God said" over and over! So does God want us to think and not say? Not likely! If He "said" and then it "was", then most likely we need to "say" also!
     I have to fight myself here  to not get sidetracked with what I believe about praise, for example, I believe that praise should be about how great and wonderful God is, not how pitiful and pathetic I am! Should the focus of my praise be about all of the tough things that I have been through, or should it be about the mighty God that brought me through them? To focus on me and my hardships borders self pity, unless the whole point is to marvel that I came through them in one piece and that it is only because of God that I did come through them! Okay, since I'm not going to focus on my own view here, except for this paragraph!  =/ I'll move on!
     God is holy and we are to enter His gates with thanksgiving and praise! I'm thinking our praise should be for Him, about Him and to Him! It's not about us, it's not about what we want or are comfortable with, it's all about Him!



Shout to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with joy;
come before him with singing.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, the sheep he tends.

Come into his city with songs of thanksgiving
and into his courtyards with songs of praise.
Thank him and praise his name.

The Lord is good. His love is forever,
and his loyalty goes on and on.

Psalm 100:1-5   

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.

Psalm 64:1-4

The custom of raising hands during worship was a common practice in the early church, especially during prayer. In Paul's letter to Timothy he writes, "I desire, then, that in every place the people should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument" (1 Timothy 2.8)

I did find this writing about raising our hands and I enjoyed it, so I thought I'd share the site with you~  http://www.hcna.us/columns/lifted-hands.html