When I was in high school, sports were divided into two categories – contact and non-contact. According to the football coaches, the non-contact sports were basketball, baseball, track, etc. The contact sport was football. That was the “man’s game.” To make his point about the toughness of football, my coach paraphrased legendary college football coach, Duffy Daugherty, at our first practice one year, “Football is not a contact sport. Dancing is a contact sport. Football is a collision sport.”
Psalm 141 (NLT)
2 Accept my prayer as incense offered to you,
and my upraised hands as an evening offering.
Psalm 141 (NLT)
2 Accept my prayer as incense offered to you,
and my upraised hands as an evening offering.
I must make a confession. I am a self-confessed, non-repentant, chronic worshiper. I am of the conviction that one of the problems in our churches and our world is that we have squeezed the concept of praise and worship into a tiny box that is to be opened only on Sunday mornings. Consequently, we miss out on the blessings that come from giving God the honor and glory He deserves for all the things that He does in and around us every day. That being said, understand that I will seize every opportunity God gives me to sing the praise of praise and worship.
I love to read the Psalms, partly because so many of them were written by David. Now, there was a man who understood praise and worship. It didn’t matter what the circumstance was, or how deep in the valley it had taken him, something would prompt David to offer praise to God. When you contrast that with the cynical, “What has God done for me lately,” attitude of people today, it becomes apparent why we struggle so with the idea of a God who is involved in every aspect of our lives. When you get right down to it that is the foundation on which our praise and worship is based – the day-by-day walk that we have with a Holy God.
In this passage, David stops to worship His heavenly Father. The preceding verse tells us that he was in the process of pleading to God for help – “…. Please hurry! Listen when I cry to you for help!” In the midst of this plea, David stopped to worship. Why? I think it is because he knew that we make our most intimate contact with the Father in worship. Look at what he says – “Accept my prayer as incense offered to you and my upraised hands as an evening offering.” David was entering into the presence of God just like the priests did in the Temple. He offered the sweet smelling perfume of prayer and his upraised hands as offerings to the Father. That is worship.
We can learn a lot from David about worship, but one of the fundamentals is that worship starts with, ends with, and is defined by personal contact with the Father. Corporate worship is nothing more than a group of individual worshipers communing with God in the same place at the same time. Even in situations where David worshiped in public, he was in his own zone with God. Remember when he was escorting the Ark to the newly completed Temple? He danced in front of the procession in praise and worship to God, which brings me to another point about worship – it is almost always accompanied by or immediately followed by praise. I don’t know how anyone can experience being in the presence of God without an outburst of praise. Don’t be afraid to let people know you are praising God!
So what does all this have to do with contact sports? I am not calling worship a sport, but I do feel that we need to understand the principle of contact. Praise and worship are a result of contact with the Father. It is our fellowship that fosters our praise. But there is another type of contact involved in praise and worship – spiritual warfare. The Devil will not sit by and watch a Christ-follower lift Jesus up through praise and worship without intervention - because he knows that when that happens, people are drawn to Him. We have to be ready to defend our right to praise and worship. David said it like this in Psalm 149:6 – “Let the praise of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands ----.”
I love to read the Psalms, partly because so many of them were written by David. Now, there was a man who understood praise and worship. It didn’t matter what the circumstance was, or how deep in the valley it had taken him, something would prompt David to offer praise to God. When you contrast that with the cynical, “What has God done for me lately,” attitude of people today, it becomes apparent why we struggle so with the idea of a God who is involved in every aspect of our lives. When you get right down to it that is the foundation on which our praise and worship is based – the day-by-day walk that we have with a Holy God.
In this passage, David stops to worship His heavenly Father. The preceding verse tells us that he was in the process of pleading to God for help – “…. Please hurry! Listen when I cry to you for help!” In the midst of this plea, David stopped to worship. Why? I think it is because he knew that we make our most intimate contact with the Father in worship. Look at what he says – “Accept my prayer as incense offered to you and my upraised hands as an evening offering.” David was entering into the presence of God just like the priests did in the Temple. He offered the sweet smelling perfume of prayer and his upraised hands as offerings to the Father. That is worship.
We can learn a lot from David about worship, but one of the fundamentals is that worship starts with, ends with, and is defined by personal contact with the Father. Corporate worship is nothing more than a group of individual worshipers communing with God in the same place at the same time. Even in situations where David worshiped in public, he was in his own zone with God. Remember when he was escorting the Ark to the newly completed Temple? He danced in front of the procession in praise and worship to God, which brings me to another point about worship – it is almost always accompanied by or immediately followed by praise. I don’t know how anyone can experience being in the presence of God without an outburst of praise. Don’t be afraid to let people know you are praising God!
So what does all this have to do with contact sports? I am not calling worship a sport, but I do feel that we need to understand the principle of contact. Praise and worship are a result of contact with the Father. It is our fellowship that fosters our praise. But there is another type of contact involved in praise and worship – spiritual warfare. The Devil will not sit by and watch a Christ-follower lift Jesus up through praise and worship without intervention - because he knows that when that happens, people are drawn to Him. We have to be ready to defend our right to praise and worship. David said it like this in Psalm 149:6 – “Let the praise of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands ----.”
We serve and awesome God!!!!!
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