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Put away all frivolity from worship. Add value to it. Worship is of the heart. Where your treasure is there your heart will be also. A worshipper is a giver. When you worship the presence of God and works of God must appear. You either love God or yourself. Loving God makes you a worshipper. Loving yourself makes you a show off. Abel brought an offering which showed his love to God. People give three types of praise – praise, mediocre praise and High Praise. God wants High Praise from His children
High Praise - is not worship for procedure or from status. When you come to worship offer High Praise. Come to worship God as a child not from the title of Apostle, Bishop, Pastor, Businessman or celebrity. Cast away every reservation. Do not put your marriage in worship. David’s wife was made barren by bringing her marriage into the scene, thereby trivialising the Worship of God. Title will make you lose good things. If it involves crying, cry like you never cried before.
High - is a packed word. High speaks of the position of God. Whenever David brought worship to God it was high. When he worshipped he was one of those Holy Ghost alcoholics. God wants it high. Get drunk with the Holy Spirit. Loosen up. He wants it in commitment. He wants it in style. Do it with all your heart, profusely, with quantity, quality, excellence. It means do it to the superlative degree.
Components of High Praise In Psalm 149
•Built on God’s Word - Sword – (2 edged sword in your hand). As a worshipper studying your bible is not an option. You must read the book of Psalm more often. God is not looking for clever expressions to describe him. You can never know who He is unless you know how He describes Himself in His word. Judge the content of your worship. Reach into your spirit and reach into the word of God. How do we get there if a worshipper does not study the Word of God.
•Praise - Acknowledge God as you worship Him. When you praise God vanity goes away. If you do not acknowledge Him as God you will be given to strange sexual practices. One of the roots of homosexuality is lack of worship. “..they did not like to retain God in their knowledge...” For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections..” Rom1:26-28
•Songs - “Sing unto the Lord a new song” Psalm 149:1 “Let them sing praises unto Him.” Psalm 149:3 The song was identified by God as a choice vehicle of high praises. If you are a worshipper do not contaminate yourself with the song of the world. Kingdoms want to be served by song. Discern between the sacred and profane. Do not allow your mind to be filled with the music of the world. Choruses, Psalms, Spiritual songs, hymns must be sung by children of God. Other people must copy songs from the Revival. The song is a component of High Praise.
•Instruments of Music - Timbrels and Harps (Ps 149:3) are some of the instruments of music used in high praise. The saints must learn how to play instruments of music skilfully. Worship God as you play the instrument.
•Joy - Ps 149:2, 5 There must be laughter in your worship. There must be expressions of Joy, for in His presence there is the fullness of Joy. In your worship there must be emotion, feeling, passion. When God gave me emotion, feelings, he wanted me to use them to worship Him.
•Dance - Psalm 149:3 Spiritual dances must arise in our worship. It’s only a demon which can hinder you from dancing. Dance to tell God the legs are yours. Dance to a song full of the Word of God.
•Noise - Psalm 149:5 There must be noise in our worship. That noise will bring us victory because Victory is shout. There are times to be loud in the house of the Lord. Sing aloud upon your bed – make noise in your bedroom, worship God in the bedroom, bathing room.
•Spiritual Expressions – As you worship, you are entering spiritual territory. There is someone who is always on the platform called the Holy Ghost. Learn to follow the leadership of the Holy Ghost and sing what he guides you to sing. Yield to the Spirit and spiritual things will manifest. A good pastor should know how to read what has been harvested from worship. Sometimes the Spirit will be present to heal, at other times to bring judgement on all the satan’s works. Songs, psalms, hymns are some of the spiritual expressions used in high praise. All worship is a journey. Whoever leads worship is not there to sing their favourite songs. Sing with your spirit and sing with your understanding. There must be a harvest of spiritual songs. We must not always borrow songs from other Christians. For a change let other Revivals sing our new songs. We must worship God until something of the spirit comes forth.
The Bull’s Eye - Worship In God's Presence
Pastor Kamba Nleya, African Revival Worship Leader
Summary by Florence Raradza, Harare Zimbabwe
The Most Important Thing In Worship (2 Chronicles 5 vs 13,14; Genesis 3 vs 8)
The 'bull’s-eye' is what you aim to hit. In worship it is the Presence of God. God’s Glory is not outside His Presence. When man was first created and put in the Garden of Eden (which being translated means delight), man was constantly in His Presence. This is man's ideal place, but sin caused man to hide himself from God. The fact that man is unfulfilled, and dissatisfied is a result of him not being in the Presence of God.
What transpires in God’s Presence:
• When we praise we address one another talking about God e.g Mwari wakanaka, hakuna wakaita saye God is good, no one is like Him. When we talk good of Him, He is sure to come, Psalm 22 vs 3 (He inhabits our praises)
• When we worship we address God as people who have seen and experienced Him e.g You are the Lord of the house, Lk 24:13-15
How God’s Presence Affects You: Transforms you into Christ's image as you worship Him, 2 Cor3 vs 18. There is joy, gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of melody in His Presence. Ps 57 vs 1, Is 51 vs 3, Psalm 34 vs 1. I am safe in His Presence, Psalm 91
What Is Worship: is man's response to the presence of God as evidenced by Revelation 1 vs 17. Let your work, projects be centered around His Presence, Moses went as far as to say if your Presence does not go with us we will not move from this place, Exodus 33 vs 14, 15. Jesus came with name Emmanuel (God with us) His purpose was to restore us to His Presence. Matthew 28 vs 20; John 14 vs 16, 17; Revelation 21 vs 1
Leading Praise and Worship
• Get Leadership - Anyone who stands before people and causes them to do something is a leader. Leadership involves taking people to a certain destination, let it be a smart journey. Knowing that at the end of the journey of worship is the Presence of God and benefits for the people, if they resist find a tactful way to persuade them to come, don't shout at them. In order to move his crowd, presented them with pictures of the land ahead (milk and honey, grapes).
• From people consciousness to God consciousness - Lead others like a shepherd with sheep. The destination lies in the bosom of the leader, let you finger point to God, not yourself or the song, "Say unto the cities of Judah Behold your God". As a leader share a little of the destination before you start, Psalms spoken before worship can direct people to God.
• Connect with people - Connect with people outside of church.
• Let there be faith - Pray and see the service whilst still at home. Lead by example, not command. Apply passion, you can never win people without passion. Also look at the congregation, see it's composition and take care of all age groups in your worship. |