Prescription for God honoring Worship and Praise

For every thing the Lord requires from us, He also gives us a “pattern” of how to do what He wants. One of the most used patterns given by the Lord Jesus was the “Model Prayer.” This is often referred to as the Lord’s prayer. But He taught this prayer to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray. LESSON: When the disciples had reached that place spiritually that they really wanted to know how to pray, they asked Him, and because their hearts were right toward Him, He taught them how to pray. The same holds true for worship and praise. When we have our hearts right with the Lord, and ask Him, He will teach us how to worship and praise Him in a way that is pleasing to Him. I used the word “Prescription” in the title, but please understand this is just the weakness of vocabulary. This is NOT like those “self-working” math problems. You can not simply take this pattern, repeat it and get the same results as those who study and apply it to their life. This procedure or arrangement of events is from scripture and it is NOT just some motions you can go through and God has to show up. This is an inventory of spiritual and emotional places (attitudes) in the human psyche that each and every individual has to be in to receive the fullness of the presents of God. As each one experience matures, it will lead to the next as it’s natural order is to lead to that next spiritual/emotional attitude. Each attitude or level of worship and praise becomes more focused on the Lord Jesus and more intense to the believer while in the presents of the Lord God. It may be understood as a believer moving through the rooms - mansions - of the Lord’s Heaven. Each grows more beautiful and astounding as the worshipper moves closer to Him. It is a focusing of your attitude on certain aspects of your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ one by one in a certain order that has been prescribed by the Lord Himself in scripture just as He did with the first disciples and the model prayer. 1.) Thanksgiving Celebration: Our first duty as Christians is to get cleaned up by confession of sins so that we may approach the Lord in worship. (This is best done on the spot at the time of reproving by the Holy Spirit.) Don’t wait till you are in the church building to start confessing sin. Get that business out of the way so that you may be able to enter His “Gates” (that’s the opening in the outer perimeter) with Thanksgiving. People leading worship often try to stir up emotions to get people to join in celebration and being joyful toward the Lord. If the believers are truly “Grateful and full of Thanksgiving” no one will have to “persuade” them to celebrate. It will be the natural outpouring for all that the Lord has blessed them with as well as all He has protected them from since the last time they we gathered. As the celebration intensifies it will morph into the next attitude. 2.) Adulation: As a believers celebration becomes more intense because of the focus on how wonderful the Lord God is to mankind, it will take the next natural turn to being a heart full of adulation for the Lord Himself. This will express it’s self just as the birds do when they burst forth in song when spring breaks bright, sunny and warm. If chased away, he will only move higher in the tree, further into the woods and sing even louder. Adulation is open glorifying of God Almighty as Perfect Very God, creator of all the universe, Owner and Master of all. Adulation will naturally follow thanksgiving celebration as night follow day. As adulation is practiced corporately it will lead each individual into a focus on the Lord Jesus in their own personal relationship with Him. 3.) Adoration: When this happens, the believer is still functioning as part of the praise and worship but it is now on a personal level. They are not singing because the people around them are, they are not singing because this is their favorite song, or the choir sounds good or any of those things. It has now become a matter of a song in their heart that must be expressed to their Lord Jesus. It is that place spiritually where the believer wants, more than anything to express his or her own personal love to the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Owner and Master. It is that sweet declaration of un-ending love and devotion, knowing that without His grace we will never be able to carry through our love for Him. As the soul of the believer has been massaged, sweetened and made smooth and soft it naturally is in need of the hand of God writing the words of God on that soul. This moves us to the next level. 4.) Proclamation: At this point, the end of expressing our personal love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, we are ready for the Holy Spirit to come with the word of God that He will write on our hearts. Our hearts are clean, grateful and full of love for the Lord, now He will wash us with the “water of the word.” This is where we have no need to be washed all over but our feet only. (See John 13) Now after He washes us with the water of the word, we can have fellowship with Him. Proclamation is nothing less than the reading and explaining of scripture as it is compared with other scripture. It is a process of “lifting” the great truths of scripture up before the believers, explaining them in true context and holding them in the light of other scriptures on the same subject. The proclamation needs to be in a logical format for the understanding of the believers. The plain, dignified approach of the scriptures telling a narrative should set the best example of the presentation of God’s message for that local body of believers. Being too creative can distract from the message by shifting the focus from the creator to the creature. It is sometime during this process of lifting up and explaining the word that each and every individual one at a time will move on to one degree or another to the next logical transformation in the believer’s attitude. 5.) Acclamation: This is the real crisis point in the entire service. This is that point where the believer makes a conscious decision to accept or reject the message. Were they washed in the water of the word, or did they just get wet? For acclamation to take place, the message has to be internalized by the individual believer on a level that transforms their actions by the renewing of their mind. The Proclamation of scripture must be willingly received and embraced as the full, final authority or true, full acclamation did not take place. And that is the ultimate goal of proclamation. It is possible for a partial acceptance to take place and later the Holy Spirit lead that person to a full transformation by the renewing of the mind and acclamation of the truth as revealed in scripture. The last station for the believer is one that does not take place at the “gathering” of the saints. 6.) Dissemination: This last position or attitude of worship and praise takes place in the world, not at the meeting place of the believers. Because of the “meeting with the Lord” that has taken place -- because of the true worship of Jesus (Thanksgiving - Adulation - Adoration - Proclamation and the Acclamation) in spirit and truth, that has taken place -- the believer has been transformed by the renewing of their mind. If you will, they were transformed into having the mind of Christ. If all else associated with the worship and presentation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ takes place and this “dissemination” does NOT take place, THERE HAS BEEN NO WORSHIP! If the first five attitudes do not result in dissemination, there was no thanksgiving - no adulation - no adoration - no lasting proclamation and no acclamation. This happens far more often than not, and is usually never noticed if there was a large enough and loud enough celebration. Everyone declares what a meaningful meeting it was, goes home unchanged, and the world remains the same as it was too. True worship will result, not in just you worshipping Jesus, but you will also have a burning desire to see everyone else come to love and worship Him too. That’s dissemination.