praise and worship

attract people towards Christian music has morphed into vague Christian-ese. We’veeaning behind the words. The unintended result is that music, one of God’s gifts to aid us in worshiping, has for many become an end in itself. The danger of overfamiliarity and of misusing biblical terms is that the purity of our praise and worship actually ends up diluted.

When phrases being taught to me. All I knew was the experience I was having with God. As I began to grow spiritually, Christian lingo became a part of my Christian life ― somehow dulling out those experiences I used to have. I had become numb in a way. No longer was praise and worship an experience with God; it was just another part of the “church” experience.

So, I decided to do some research on my own and get back to the basics. Here is what I discovered.

WHAT IS PRAISE?

Praise in the original Greek means to sing, to tell of, to give, or to confess.* In simpler terms, it means to be thankful for God’s blessings, and to declare that good news to God and to others. Here are some examples in Scripture:

Psalms 9:1-3, 18:2-3 and 28:2, & 6-7 describe how to praise God for what He has done for us.
Psalm 79:13 tells us to praise God by passing from generation to generation the knowledge of His goodness, grace, and mercy.
Hebrews 13:15 tells us that instead of using sacrifices towards God, we are to offer Him praise and thanks. In other words, giving praise is a form of sacrifice.
1 Peter 1:7 explains that our faith naturally leads to our praise of God.
In Acts 16:25, we see Paul and Silas praising God and witnessing to other prisoners. It is also worthy to note that they were praising God under horrible circumstances in their lives.
Each of these Scriptures emphasize that praise is an outward expression, not just to God, but in order to tell others how good God is. This is the true foundation of praise. It doesn’t have to be directly correlated with music, and it has nothing to do with putting on a show. True praise comes from deep in the heart, and the outcome is that others see God working in us.

A wonderful example of this can be found in the song Mary proclaims while still carrying Jesus in her womb (Luke 1:46-55). Filled with His Spirit and fully aware of His greatness, Mary tells of how magnificent God is. She sings of how great