Tag Archives: thanksgiving

Thanksgiving as Worship

I have been seeking to learn to worship God in a manner that truly honors God as God.

I have not always felt this strong drive to worship God even though I have been a disciple for over 40 years. I have experienced the goodness of God in my life.  I have said some deeply emotional prayers, as well as my share of rote or canned prayers. At times I have viewed prayer as a way to get what I want. I have prayed prayers from true faith, and at times I have merely mouthed words.  In my quest for true deeper worship I am not talking about prayers like that. I am talking about learning to talk to God in a way that honors Him as God.

As I study the Word of God and see who He is through the character, life and sacrifice of Jesus, I am moved to worship Him. Another factor that moves me to worship God is seeing my sins, especially those things that are deep in my heart. Examples of deeper heart issues include doing the right things for the wrong reasons; doing good things because they are expected; resenting using my time and resources for others but doing it anyway; not being totally honest about my feelings; judging others, and the like.

The more that these things are revealed to me, the greater my appreciation for the sacrifice of Jesus becomes, and the more intense my desire to worship Him. The deeper I see inside my soul the more drawn I am to honor Him.

The Heart’s Stance in Worship
In my quest to worship God I found that giving thanks to God is a major facet of worshiping Him, but to truly thank God requires a heart stance and understanding about our “selves” and God.

Romans 1: 20-21 reveals a truth about man’s relationship to God: “ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Romans 1:20-21 reveals the heart stance and understanding that we must have before God in order to worship Him.  Simply stated, we have to acknowledge God as the Creator and our “selves” as His creation – under Him. It is from this stance that we can honor God and give Him thanks. When we refuse to glorify God as God and do not give Him thanks we become more and more darkened in our thinking and unable to understand spiritual truths.

Honoring Self Hinders Honoring God
In the gospels we see religious leaders who surely should know and worship God. Although these men practice religion, they do not really honor God. In John 5:43-44, Jesus infers it is because they seek their own glory: “For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.”

They do not honor God because they are honoring themselves among men. Seeking our own honor hinders our ability to honor God, and it hinders our ability to believe. Therefore, as a “worshiper” of God, I need to ask myself some hard questions: Who do I really seek to honor, God or myself? What are the subtle ways that I honor myself over God?

Thanksgiving and Worship
In Psalm 50:23, the psalmist reveals that thanking God is like offering a sacrifice that honors God, “He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; and to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.”

Ps. 69:30-31 states that to praise God with thanksgiving is more pleasing to Him than offering a sacrifice, “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.”

Hebrews 13:15 states that in Jesus we can continually worship God in a way that gives thanks to His name, “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”

Gleanings
So in this quest I am learning to put God in His place over me by acknowledging in my daily life that He is God, my Creator, and I am His creation under His rule and authority.

Honoring God involves giving Him thanks in praise. I thank Him for who He is and what He does. I thank Him for: His steadfast love and faithfulness, His mercy, His grace to me, His power and help, His wisdom and truth, and so much more. The more I know Him, the more I praise Him with thanksgiving.

“Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.” Heb.12:28

Bless the Name of God

Blessed be the name of God!
As I am reading and learning to pray the psalms, I came across the expression “blessed be the name of God.” That sounded so familiar to me. Slowly, my mind unraveled the mystery. As a young girl I remember kneeling down in a small church building and responded “blessed be the name of God,” over and over again. As the lector called out attributes and actions of God, we responded “blessed be the name of God”. Since most attendees were of Polish, or partial Polish descent, often this call and response was in Polish. My mind still remembers the response “Niech będzie błogosławione imię Boga”. It is only recently that I connected the Polish phrase to the English form of the call and response worship.

As I read through the Psalms (and other passages) I see this expression in various forms: blessed be the name of the Lord; let God’s name be blessed; bless the Lord and so on. Some examples :
– Psalm 113:2 – “Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time    forth and forever…”.
– Daniel 2:20 – Daniel said, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him.
– Psalm 103:1,2– “Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits…”

There are many statements of this expression in the scriptures. (See other references to this expression: Ps. 41:13; 50:2; 72:18,19; 89:52; 106:48; 124:6; 144:1; Gen. 14:20; 1 Kings 1:48; 5:7;8:15,56;10:9;8:56; I Chron. 16:36;29:10-13; Job 1:21. It is an encouraging study to read these passages in context and learn who blessed God, what did they say in blessing God and why).

How does one  “bless” God?
I was a little stumped by the term bless in the expression “bless, the Lord.” I thought, how can I bless God, isn’t that something He does to me? Isn’t that something we say to one another,?” We write it in notes of encouragement, birthday cards, and so on, ” God bless you”, and so on.

In the context of Ps. 113:2, the term “blessed be” comes from the Hebrew term “barak” which means bow or kneel. Brown, Driver and Riggs provides the following meaning, in reference to its use in numerous psalms: “to bless God, to adore on bended knee.” This gives us the picture of  bowing before almighty God, surrendering our pride, our self, honoring, and praising him.

“Blessed be God, blessed be the Lord, blessed be the name of God” are all terms of praise, a praise to God that indicates His position as sovereign, Almighty God worthy of our honor and thanksgiving and crediting Him for all goodness and acts in our favor.

So when I, with purposed intent, take time to bow and worship God, praising His nature, His character and great deeds, I am “blessing the name of God.” So, “blessing” in this sense is a term indicating worshiping God, bowing before Him, honoring Him, and praising Him.

Blessing is Praising
The idea of blessing God, or blessing His name is closely related to praising Him. In the psalms we often see parallel type statements that mean the same thing with a slightly different tint or shade of meaning. In Psalm 145: 1-2  we see this parallel structure:
“I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.”

Another example of this is in Psalm 34:1 which states:
“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” And, again, we read it in Ps. 634:  “So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands (a stance indicating praising God) in Your name.”

In my way of thinking, when I bless God I am praising Him with a heart of good will and gratitude to God.  When I praise God I am praising Him from a heart of deep reverence, honor and adoration, with an understanding of His worthiness and my need for Him.

Blessing the name of God is worshiping Him and praising Him. We are ascribing to God the value and worth that He has. We, the creation, are honoring the Creator. We, the subjects are honoring the King. We, the children, are honoring our eternal Father.

Read through the book of psalms highlight all the verses on blessing the name of God.  When was the last time you thought about God and honored Him as God? Take time today to bow before God and bless His name.

 

 

 

 

Ring the New Year in With Praise

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— Ps. 103:2

A Hum Bug about New Years
I am generally a “hum bug” about New Years.  I am not sure why but I am. Maybe it is because time seems to be flying by and each year I think I will not accomplish what I should or what I want to do. I fear I will not fulfill my purpose(s) in life.

There have been times when I have dutifully examined the old year and set out goals and plans for the new. Yet in the end I felt that I came up short. I didn’t meet the goals. I didn’t fulfill what I thought was my purpose.

A Change of Focus
But recently I have tried to switch the focus from me, myself and my self constructed world to God and His realm, His kingdom.  I have begun looking for Him and His handiwork and presence throughout my days. And I have seen it, yes, I have seen His working in the good and the difficult situations and feelings in my life.

So, this New Years, I am not full of consternation and regret but of joy-not the bring out the party hats and toot the horns joy, but a deep inner peace and contentment. Sure, I failed to do some things I thought I should. Sure, I have had my share of sadness, and challenges in my character and relationships. But I have seen God working, giving me patience, humility, grace, courage to speak, and ways to serve and help others.

So this year I am spending New Year’s Eve and day with specific time to praise God. Praising God and His Son Jesus will be my focus not just on this day, but it will be my theme for this year.

Praise Truths about God
The pages of scripture reveal the character and nature of God. As I read these words I begin to see a God I can trust and who is worthy of praise. These truths about God help me understand what my life is about and help me during the challenging times and feelings. I praise God for His love, faithfulness, mercy, goodness, power and more.

Here are a few that help me:
God is good. This is a truth. He cannot act against His nature. He is good and has good intentions towards me. So, this year when life does not seem so good and I am wondering about God’s part in it, I will choose to believe that God is good and has good intentions towards me no matter what things around me look like or feel like.
• Psalm 145:9 – The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Psalm 100:5 – For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and His faithfulness   continues to each generation.

God is faithful. He is always there. He is reliable, even when you feel you have nothing to stand on, He is there.
• Lamentations 3:22-23– The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

God is personally involved in your life. God is always working on my behalf even when I do not feel it. He is intricately involves in my life. God is not the author of bad things in my life, but when bad things happen, I know He knows and is helping me.
• Psalm 56:8– You keep track of all my sorrows.You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
• Psalm 139:16-You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

These are but a few truths about God that I will hold unto and praise Him for in the New Year.

Make a collection of truths about God and use them to encourage you and to praise God as you go through this next year