5 Things We Can Use To Worship - A Dose of Encouragement

  

Fred and I are involved in "leading the worship" in our church which means we lead the corporate singing of our praise and worship to God.


Some people see this as all that worship consists of but we also need to remember that

Worship is an act of devotion towards God

So when I look at it like that then it is obvious that as a Christian I should automatically love worship.

If we consider our purpose on earth (as mentioned in Why We Worship 1 ) which is nothing to do with all the Purpose books I see around us - but simply what the reason we are alive is then we see that

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever

But because we are human and imperfect, I know that we are not immediately drawn in to worship and it may feel completely alien to some of us.


One of the reasons I love worship is basically because I love singing and we find it easier to worship God in a song, don't we - someone else has done the hard work of writing the words and arranging the music and we just have to read the words listen to the tune and sing along.

But can't we do other things that are very easy? 

That's why I'm going to take the opportunity to give you some help by thinking about

5 Things We Can Use To Worship

1. The Bible
2. Prayer
3. Thoughts
4. Songs
5. Actions

1. We can use the Bible as a great means of Worship.

Reading and memorizing God's Word is a great and easy way to worship God.
Either on our own in our quiet times or in church among others.



Read out verses in worship to God

Here we are reading out His Word which is powerful and in doing so we are agreeing with what God has said.

As we ourselves read from the bible we are focused on the truth in those passages and greatly encouraged by what we read, also if we read aloud in corporate worship services everyone gains from hearing His Word which is Truth and because He never changes then neither will His Word.

Read out Bible Verses that are simply words of Worship

Here we are reading what is recorded in the bible of what others have said in worship and in repeating these words we can be in agreement with them.

Read out Bible Verses about God's Love

Here we are reading and hence concentrating on the Love of God.

You may be further encouraged by 

10 Bible Verses of Encouragement about God's Love



Read out Bible Verses about God's Mercy & Grace

Here we are reading and concentrating on the Mercy of God.

Read out Bible Verses about the nature and attributes of God

Here we are reading and concentrating on the very essence of God

You may be further encouraged by this series of short posts on

Why We Worship which is fully based around the Attributes of God

Read out Bible Verses about Jesus

Here we are reading verses about our Saviour and basking in all that He has done for us.

Read out Bible Verses declaring our intention to Worship God

Here we are reading verses which are telling God that we will Bless Him, Praise Him, Obey Him and His Word.

Read out Bible Verses encouraging ourselves and others to worship God

Here we are reading Bible verses written by the apostles (other followers of God) to encourage us all to worship

2. We can use Prayer as a great means of Worship.

Talking to God in Prayer is a great and easy way to worship Him.
Again either on our own in our quiet times or in church among others.



Praising God in Prayer

We are talking to God in acknowledgement of His Greatness.

Thanking God in Prayer

We are talking to God about the wonderful things He has done for us

and how He has answered our petitions.

3. We can use Our Thoughts as a great means of Worship.

Thinking about God Regularly is a great and easy way to worship Him.

Recognising just how He is is the one we can depend on at all times.

and let's not leave out what we started with

4. We can use Song as a great means of Worship.

Singing to God is a great and easy way to worship Him.
Again either on our own in our quiet times or in church among others.

Singing all those wonderful hymns that have been written throughout the ages and all the more recent songs and choruses mean we are praising and worshiping God.
Also at the same time we are learning and memorizing His Word which is so often contained in the verses of the hymns and learning doctrine.

We can Write our own Songs and Sing our own Songs.


We can Wait in the Presence of God and receive new Words and Songs from Him.

We can follow the example of the Psalmists and others as they encouraged themselves and others to sing unto God.

O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, 

all the earth.    

 Psalm 96:1

O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done 

marvellous things:    

Psalm 98:1

Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; 

the isles, 

and the inhabitants thereof.   

 Isaiah 42:10

Then we should Progress to other Forms of Worship we may not find so Easy to start with. 

5. We can use Actions as a great means of Worship.

• We can Obey the Word of God.

• We can Tell others about His Love and Work in our Lives.

• We can Write our own Praises and Speak our own Praises.

• We can Memorize His Word so that we always have it in our thoughts and ready to teach to others.

• We can help others to Memorize His Word

• We can show His Love to others

• We can encourage others to to Sing unto the Lord

• We can teach the children to learn about God and His Word through Songs

We started off by saying that

Worship is an act of devotion towards God

and 

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever

So let's glorify God and enjoy being in His presence as we worship God and teach and encourage others to do the same.

Free Worship Word Search Puzzle - Coffee & Conversation

The Theme for this Word Search is

WORSHIP

I'm offering this Word Search as one of my assortment of free printables which can be found in my Resource Library

Worship Word Search

Can you find the word WORSHIP written 19 times 

in this Word Search Puzzle?

The Word Search is available to download in both A4 and Letter size and of course comes with an answer sheet.

If you are interested in other Word Search Printables or other Free Printables you can find a list of all of them in our Resource Library

Have you downloaded this Free WORSHIP Word Search yet?

Other Posts about Worship

are

Why We Worship - Devotional series

Songs of Worship - Devotional series

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 95

Psalm 96 v 9 - Memorizing the Bible

Free Word Search Puzzle - Psalm 96 v 9

BUT

don't forget to

Download your FREE PRINTABLE HERE in A4 or Letter size

Or pin this pic below to come back later

Where is Beauty? - A Dose of Encouragement

When I want to study about something from the Bible I more often than not tend toward the Question Words

What, When, Where, Why, Who and How   

So for this study on Beauty I have partly used this method once again.

Previously in the blog post WHAT IS BEAUTY we looked at the real beauty we need to have and it was not physical.  

If you haven't read that post click on through to it and read it and then come back and continue here.

So, having already looked at what Beauty is let's now consider

WHERE IS BEAUTY?

No questionnaire to start this time and no sayings.

But perhaps we could consider this section as an illustration.

IT'S WHAT 'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS

Imagine two large Tesco Long life carrier bags that were popular a few years ago.

Well actually you don't have to imagine just take a look at this picture

2 Bags 

1st. containing garbage & broken things

2nd. containing pictures & items

 

1. If we take out each piece and decide whether it’s ugly or beautiful

• a plastic wrapper from raw meat  
• a clump of dusty, hair and dirt
• a note containing a nasty comment about a person

 

2. If we take out each piece and decide whether it’s ugly or beautiful

• a drawing made by our children/grandchildren
• a family photo with happy smiling faces
• a momento from a special holiday

We could probably all agree that the first bag contained things that were ugly or not worth keeping.

The second bag however contains things that are beautiful to us because of the special reasons that caused us to kept them. 

For example when we did this at our women's meeting all the ladies could understand that 

• a picture of me from long ago was beautiful to me because it was my husband's favourite picture of me - a good memory and the love of my husband

SO WHAT'S INSIDE US?

Is it Godly beauty and if so will it ever change?

 

 

Beauty is in Goodness    

We discovered in the previous blog post that Beauty was Goodness

We saw this from creation last time when after everything was created God said: 

Genesis 1 v 31

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.  

 

Yes the Bible tells us that God said it was GOOD.

God did not say it is beautiful and we know He would not have created something that wasn’t beautiful in His eyes but it was more important for Him to say it is good so we discovered something of what beauty is to God.

So Beauty is in goodness

From this we know 

that with the beauty/goodness of God upon us

 we will be more like Him in all ways.

 

  

Where else is Beauty?  

Let’s take a look at  Psalm 96  yes the whole Psalm

And look out for the word beauty.

 

Psalm 96

¹Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
² Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
³ Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonders among all peoples.

⁴ For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
⁵ For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
⁶ Honour and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

⁷ Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Give to the Lord glory and strength.
⁸Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.
⁹ Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.

¹⁰ Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns;
The world also is firmly established,
It shall not be moved;
He shall judge the peoples righteously.”

¹¹ Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
¹² Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice
¹³     before the Lord.
For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth.

 

A great Psalm starting with praise of 

God's salvation and His greatness

Look again at Verse 6

"Honour and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary."

 

Where is Beauty?   -    Beauty is in the sanctuary of God

What is the sanctuary of God?   -    The Holy Place.

So Beauty is in the Holy Place - The place of God's presence and greatness

What other word does the word sanctuary remind you of?  

  Sanctification.

 Definition of Sanctification:  

the action or process of being freed from sin or purified

the action of making or declaring something holy

So Beauty is a result of God’s sanctification of us, sinless, pure, holy

 

Look again at Verse 9

"Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness"

 Holiness is Beautiful

So beauty is in the holiness in our lives 

 

From this we know 

that with the beauty/holiness of God upon us 

we will be more like Him in all ways.

 

  

 

Start - Work in progress - End   

 

One of the girls in our church is studying Art at University and for a project she was working with textiles.

She had to plan out her work, dye fabrics, find different textures of fabrics and a lot of this involved research even before she started into any of the artistic and practical work.

When Eden shared her project with the ladies we could see and understand that her work was unique to her  – no one else has produced an identical piece of Art.

We thought there was great beauty in her final result but along the way we could see times where we wondered how it would turn out.

From this we could clearly see that Eden had a start, a time of work in progress and an end product which was unique to her.

God has made us unique and treats us uniquely so each of us will have a unique Christian Walk.

God gave us new life – Salvation

Our Christian Walk is a progression, growth towards holiness as we walk and learn in Him.

 

But there is a difference between this and the example of beauty in Eden’s work

Eden’s beautiful project came to an end.

Godly beauty will not come to an end.

Instead it is results in something full of goodness & holiness 

that we could never imagine.

     Eternal Life