The Priority Of Praise & Worship: Learning To Give Back To God

This book is about the priority of praise and worship in spirit and truth. Jesus reveals to us in John 4:24 that, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” In this conversation with a lowly and rejected Samaritan woman, He brought us to a new understanding of how we are to worship God, our creator and Father. Not just in a certain place or with certain animal sacrifices but with a heart full of love and devotion. Jesus was initiating a new era of human relationship with God. He was restoring the concept of man to once again have a personal and intimate relationship with God through worship. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, the only atonement for sin was to shed the blood of an animal and place the carcass on an altar to be consumed by fire. This act of bloodshed represented humility, sorrow and tribute to the One who created all things and is greater than all things that were created. From the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, the Bible has one central theme: God desiring to restore His relationship with humankind that He had with Adam and Eve in the Garden. From Genesis three to the end of the book of Revelation, the Bible message is all about God renewing the relationship He had with His special creation, man. Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. We read of this account in Genesis 3:6-7. Through disobedience, they sinned and the result was separation from God. Both were cast from this garden of paradise and away from the presence of the Father. God had told them that the day they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die. From that point on, man contaminated the holy relationship between God and himself. One of the unique things we see about the creation is that God always created a perfect environment for everything He created. When He created the fish, He also created the water. Water, of course, is the optimum environment for the fish. Without water, a fish will soon die. The same is true for the birds and flying animals. God created the air and atmospheric pressure so the birds could spread their wings and fly. Without the air, the birds could never be what the Creator intended for them to be. They could never do what He intended for them to do. Consider the land animals. Without the fields and forests, the beasts could not sustain their life. Each one has its own particular habitat designed especially for its optimum existence. The same is true for man. When God created Adam, He also created the Garden of Eden. God placed man in the garden because it was the most suitable place for the man to exist. This garden was special because it was holy; it was the place where God manifested His presence. God requires holiness before He manifests His presence. The optimum place for man is in God’s presence. In the presence of God, man has the ability to live forever. God never planned for man to die. His plan has always been for man to share eternity with Him. The Lord designed man to live forever. In the presence of the Father, there is life forevermore. God has been trying constantly to find a way to get the relationship back. We see throughout the Scriptures that worship is God’s highest priority and that worship is the avenue to the heart of God. The Lord’s desire is seen in Exodus 20:3-6: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Praise and worship is the willful act that allows us to realize fellowship, audience, communion and companionship with God. Before the Lord took the children of Israel into the land of promise, He told Moses to bring them to Mount Sinai to offer sacrifices and worship Him on that mountain. The only examples of worship the children of Israel had were the examples they had seen in Egypt. Their previous captors, the Egyptians, worshiped animals, celestial bodies, ancestors, idols they had created and creatures that lived in or around the Nile River. The rituals of worship that the Egyptians performed were unacceptable to the God of creation. Through Moses and Aaron, God had to teach His people the proper and appropriate way to worship and praise Him. It was on Mount Sinai that God gave instructions to Moses on how to create an environment for His holy presence. It was in and around the Tabernacle of Moses that God revealed His presence by fire at night and a cloud by day. To serve God, is to worship Him. If you are not a worshiper, you cannot enter into the presence of God. If you are not a worshiper, you cannot create an environment for the presence of God and you will never know Him. His desire is that we know Him. We were created to praise and worship Him and to fellowship with Him. God desires purity in each one of us. It is in our worship experience where we realize that purity allows us to come in contact with God. This knowledge of His holiness is why God desires each one of us to worship Him. The saving grace offered by Jesus allows us entrance into the Lord’s presence; yet, worship is the key to that personal relationship with God the Father.