Wednesday Night April 9th

This week we continued in our discussion of worship. We continued with a study on praise. We first defined praise as an expression of admiration or approval for God through song or speech. We also discussed that praise is an act of worship. We came to an understanding of what praise is fairly quickly and then moved on to some reasons that we should praise God. We looked at Psalms 63 for our answers. In this Psalm, David is in the hot, dry desert of Judah hiding from someone (either Saul or Absalom) and in this bad time David finds several reasons to praise God.

The first reason that I suggested was that David chose to praise God for what He’s done in the past. This can be seen in verses 6-8. We discussed that the things God has done in our past is a great reason to praise Him. I reminisced of times that God had brought me through difficulty and times that I had experienced His presence in church. I shared how I could praise Him for all the great things He has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We determined that if we could truly realize how unworthy we are in comparison to who Christ is, our attitude towards church and praise would change.

The second reason that I suggested was that David chose to praise God for what He is going to do. David could praise God because he knew at the end of time God would win the battle. In verses 9-11 David refers to the victory that will be his because he is God’s. As Christians we have the same victory, because of Jesus we will spend eternity in Glory with God. We can rejoice in that and praise God for that. We can also praise Him for the impact the we will have on others because of the power of the Holy Spirit. We may not even know the work that God is going to do or the blessing that He is going to give us but we can praise Him in faith for what He is going to do.

The third reason that I suggested was that David chose to praise God because of the present. David was in a dry, hot desert and the first five verses of this Psalm describes the spiritual desire He has to be satisfied by God with the physical circumstances that he is caught in. In other words even though David is hungry, tired, and thirsty he above all desires spiritual nourishment. I challenged the students on this point. We have all we could ever need. We have never become truly thirsty and hungry physically. I had not had anything to eat since 2 pm and I would like to have had a burger, but I wasn’t truly hungry. I believe that in the great luxury we have, we have become a generation and a youth group that is playing church and playing praise music and playing games. We have neglected to truly glorify God and praise Him as He deserves to be praised.

We ended the night with that challenge. I asked them put their self aside and praise God. I provide them with about fifteen minutes of time to praise God. I would encourage you to spend time this week praising God and to also speak to you child about what it means to praise God in your life.

dustin