Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “A Life of Praise”. A good lesson on how “praise (can) transform us and the situation around us” (Quarterly for Sabbath, August 21). Which leads to a logical question, “What is praise”? According to “Merriam-Webster”, the verb “praise” is defined as “to express a favorable judgment of (to COMMEND)”, or “to glorify (a god or saint) especially by the attribution of perfections”. Praise sounds akin to worship.
Do we praise God (worship) by what we say, the songs we sing, the services we attend? Is that true praise? Or is worshipping God something much more? Do we not worship God by our lives? And if so, is not praise akin to this, too? I submit that praise, like worship, is what is done by the life, not by mere words or song. It is living the very “perfections” (ibid) that we value in our God… or (God forbid) in our perverse culture, too. The way we each live, display what we truly worship and praise, not our words or our songs.
It is said that true forgiveness is not something you do to another, but something you do with another. That true forgiveness is a putting-away that which divides. And that can only be fully accomplished when both parties are reconciled. A mere statement of forgiveness, or a mere sentiment of forgiveness on one’s part is not true forgiveness. True forgiveness is an active working to eliminate what divides both parties. And this can only be accomplished by working with each other to put away those differences. True forgiveness is with another.
Therefore, isn’t praise or worship like this, too? Isn’t true praise and worship what you do with another? With the One worshipped and praised? With our God? Not solo. This makes so much sense. That true worship and praise is done with the One we worship and praise. He is a participant in the worship and praise. Else it is but us sinners, offering our sinful worship and sinful praise. He is a participant in the praise and worship of our lives, which proceeds from our hearts. Hearts washed clean, and kept clean by His abiding presence.
We have been so confused about this. We are so enamored with our own autonomy and our own selfish thinking that we are missing the point of our lives, the point of our being. We are to live in-union-with our God and with each other. We are not an island unto ourselves. “Selfishness is death” (Desire of Ages pg. 417).
Take love, for example. Love is not really love unless it is shared with another. And even that love which a sinner shares with another sinner is not really love unless it is intimately connected with our God. We are incapable of loving at all unless we are connected intimately with our God.
This is part of what God has been trying to get through to us since the very beginning. That all things are WITH Him, not apart from Him. Love is not done alone but with Him… and then can encompass the other. Forgiveness is not done alone, but with Him… and then with the other. Praise, worship, faith, works, obedience… all done with Him, not apart from Him. Intimately with Him. This is the beauty of what God has been trying to get through to us. All is with Him… or it is not true, not authentic. Without God it is all a sham, a show, just words.
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). Our spirit must be united to Him so that our spirit and His Holy Spirit, are One. Else we do not forgive, nor love, nor believe, nor praise, nor worship, nor obey… all is sin and all is lost.
But not to worry. God has done all to meet our desperate lack. All we need is to come Home to Him… and stay with Him (which is the definition of “faith”). Being with our God is everything. Being without Him is emptiness and death.
With brotherly love,
Jim