A
Alabaster
Guest
Psalm 100:4-5 NLT
Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
Do we plan for our days of worship? Do we engage in praise and worshipfulness before we enter? I believe we need to really make a major consideration of this very thing. I believe that if we truly love God and worship Him with our lives every day of the week, we need to set aside time on Saturday (if we worship with the Body on Sunday) to ready our hearts and minds for standing in the presence of the Lord. We are anticipating standing before Him as in His courts. He deserves our full attention and our mouths full of praise for Him. Our minds need to be swept of thoughts apart from Jesus Christ, and our mouths need to be ready to express loudly our thankfulness and love for Him. His name must be on our lips and His goodness must be extolled.
These are attitudes of praise and gratefulness that we can begin earlier in the week, culminating in the sanctuary. How do we do this? We can set aside time for further scripture reading, of quietude, and meditation, of listening to worship music and of practicalities such as planning the day and what you need to do to ready for it—what you will wear, or what you will eat that morning, how you will get there or who you will bring, etc. What a wonder to join my voice in praise and worship with others of like mind and heart! What a joy and a strength to plan to be in the house of the Lord!
As we demonstrate our faithfulness to God in actively ordering our lives around praise and the sanctuary, we are living examples to those around us, especially our children. No children? Then we are examples to those children around us just the same! We reveal the life of devotion to God before little eyes and ears, thereby imprinting them for their future as worshipers. We have a legacy to pass on for future generations of believers!
I am always moved with awe when I behold the small children in our church, lining up before the platform and worshiping with loud song, hands raised, and clapping, and with dancing. I am especially moved when I witness small children drop to their knees before the Lord in deep worship. That, my friends, is learned behaviour!
Our God is an awesome God! Let us make plans to come and worship Him together regularly in His courts!
NEW
11/23/07
