Worship Is Our HonourSample

Getting Real With God

In the Bible there is a whole book of songs written to help God’s people sing - it’s called ‘Psalms’. There is a beautiful honesty in this songbook. Some psalms are songs of joy and hope, others are songs of despair and regret. As we read the psalms you can’t help but notice that God is comfortable with every emotion that we feel. We get permission to pray or sing about whatever we are experiencing. Our worship is never about suppressing the emotions of our story, rather worship is a space where we can discover God’s presence and comfort in the middle of whatever we might be going through.

For some reason it’s easy to slip into thinking that my prayers and my praise need to be carefully manicured, that mature faith is about managing my emotions before addressing God. But the Bible is full of stories of men and women who cry out in desperation - there are songs of lament and songs of celebration. God is glorified in both as we welcome His presence into seasons of happiness and seasons of loss, seasons of need and seasons of abundance. God delights in the overflow of honest emotions, there’s something raw and real about sincere prayer and praise. It’s not like God doesn’t know exactly how we're feeling anyways.

Joy in Suffering

There’s also something powerful about aligning our hearts with a song that invites us to look above our circumstances. Numerous times in the Bible we are reminded to rejoice in the middle of hard times, to choose a response of joy even though we may not feel comfortable or safe. The most remarkable example of this is when Paul and Silas were locked up and placed in stocks in the prison at Philippi. They’d been severely beaten, but they didn’t let their wounds silence them. They started to pray and sing hymns in front of an audience of prisoners and guards. Their attitude literally unlocked their chains and opened their cell, and even more importantly it invited the prison warden to discover Jesus.

It can’t have been easy to praise God in front of strangers, especially with aching wounds and prison walls. But Paul and Silas had trained their hearts to rejoice whatever the circumstance, they had learnt to worship in the middle of good times and bad. The way we grow in this heart posture is through choosing each day to process our emotions with prayer and praise.

The Gift of Worship

When we think about Paul’s personal experience we can understand why he has such a high view of praise and worship. That’s why he tells the Christians in Colossi that whenever they get together they must make singing a priority. In fact he goes so far as to say that the way we grow in our faith is through singing ‘psalms, hymns and songs of the Spirit’. The commentators don’t agree on what each refers to, but clearly Paul wants our praise and worship to have variety and be Spirit-led. His point is that our praise and worship is an important part of how we encourage and inspire each other.

So when it comes to praise and worship, do I have the same expectation as Paul? Do I believe that prayer and praise is how God changes things? Do I see the worship time in church as God coaching and encouraging my faith, do I embrace it as an invitation to train my heart? Am I comfortable being honest with God about how I’m feeling? Do I know how to rejoice in the middle of the things I’m going through?

Worship is a gift. A gift to help us grow the intimacy of our relationship with our Father.

Reflection Questions:

1. How honest am I when it comes to my conversations with God?
2. How would I describe the default response of my heart to hard times?
3. How much does my attitude to praise and worship match Paul’s?
4. What do I believe the purpose of making time in church for praise and worship is?

We pray that these devotions have been an encouragement to your life, and stoked a fresh fire in your personal and public worship.

This devotion was prepared for you by the team at HopeUC. If you would like to know more about following Jesus we'd love to connect with you at hopeuc.com