Most Praise, But Fewer Worship

All over the world today, people have been, or will be, giving praise to God. They will stand, sing, clap their hands, maybe even dance. But for many, that will be the end of it. They will never move into worship. See, worship requires intimacy, and many are not comfortable with that. They can sing, clap, stand, dance, even give their tithes, without being intimate. One brother said that intimacy was, into-me-see. With that being the case, many of us are uncomfortable with intimacy. Even with God! We don't want anyone to see into our lives anymore than what we let show. Even sometimes with God. We want Him to see the external things. The standing, singing, clapping, dancing, giving of our tithes and offerings, but we want to hide from Him the internal things. It seems we think that if we keep Him busy with the external things, maybe He won't see, or maybe ignore, the internal things. Not true! He sees it whether we want Him to or not. And He doesn't ignore anything!

Another thing about intimacy, it is not self-satisfying. It is satisfying another instead of myself. Marriages suffer from a lack of intimacy. The church hasn't taught much, if at all, on intimacy. I guess we thought it was taboo or something. Then we wonder why we have so many marriage problems in the Church. But that is what worship is! Satisfying another! Him! With all the love, adoration, and affection that is in our whole being! Jesus said in Mark 12:30 that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. What if we decided to WORSHIP HIM with the same directive? Pour out all of my passion...give Him all my feelings, wants, desires...give Him all my thoughts...and use all my strength to the point of being exhausted! To worship Him till He is satisfied......not till I'm done!

Praise is being thankful and grateful. It is telling Him, and others, how much I love Him, how thankful I am for all He has done, how good He has been! I will praise Him in the standing, singing, clapping, dancing! I will tell Him how much I love Him, need Him, want Him, how strong He is, how thankful I am, how grateful I am that He is mine. But I will also worship Him till He is satisfied with His fill of all my heart and all my soul and all my mind and all my strength. When He is done, I will be done! And I will long for the next time to be with my Beloved. Worship is for Him, not for me! Worship is entering into intimacy and giving Him ALL my heart, soul, mind, and strength, till He is satisfied with all I have to give.