Without doubt, God has been good and gracious to me and, I am sure, to you too this year. And it is only appropriate that we meditate carefully on all that He has done for us and praise Him for them. It is actually a shame that many of us who are called Christians today do not have a culture of evaluating God’s acts of kindness towards us and thanking Him for them (Ps 103:2, 1Tim 1:12-14). And that is largely because we have not been properly brought up along these lines. Our idea of thanking and praising God is to spend some minutes to sing and dance and shake our bodies on our church meeting days.
But thanking and praising God goes beyond what we do on some selected days of the week; it is what we must give ourselves to doing every day. Also, thanking and praising God goes beyond singing and dancing and shaking bodies. And is it wrong for us to sing or dance or shake our bodies in praise of God? No!
The problem, however, is that much of our singing and dancing and shaking of bodies is usually of the flesh. Many times we sing without considering the meanings of the songs we are singing or their consistency with the word of God. And that shows that, for the most part, we sing from the head and not from the heart.
Also, most of the dance styles we now see in our church meetings are those that we imported from worldly musicians and artists. And these dance styles are never without some immoral undertone. But since our giving of thanks is mostly of the head, we don’t usually care about what God thinks of what we are doing—we just do it anyhow.
Now God does not expect us to praise or thank Him anyhow. What He wants is for us to praise and thank Him from our hearts. He wants us to think carefully about what He has done for us, what He is doing in our lives and whatever He has promised to do for us and appreciate Him for them.
Why does the Lord speak of worshipping God in spirit and in truth? It is because of things like these. God wants us to always and continually give Him heart worship. And for that to happen, we must learn to think deeply and carefully about His acts of goodness and kindness to us. (Cf. John 4:23-24)
Look at King David, for example. On one occasion, the Lord gave Him some very powerful and gracious promises, because of his desire to build Him a temple. And when David received those promises, the bible says:
“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O God, you have spoken about the future of the house of your servant. You have looked on me as though I were the most exalted of men, O LORD God. What more can David say to you for honoring your servant? For you know your servant, O LORD. For the sake of your servant and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made known all these great promises. There is no one like you, O LORD, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel — the one nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for yourself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You made your people Israel your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God.”” (1Chron 17:16-22NIV)
Look at that. Just consider the way this king approached, acknowledged and praised God. We are told that he sat down before the Lord and praised Him. Yes, there were occasions that David danced before the Lord, and God honoured him for doing so (2Sam 6:12-15). But on this occasion, he did not dance at all. He did not even kneel down or roll on the floor, although nothing is wrong with doing such. Rather, he sat down to think carefully of God’s goodness and favour towards him, his family and his nation and to thank Him for them.
Now we also need to learn to function in this manner. We need to understand that praising God does not have much to do with the position we take—sitting, standing, rolling on the floor, kneeling or dancing. Rather, it has everything to do with the state of our hearts and minds.
So, I challenge you to raise the standard of your worship and praise of God, as the Day of the Lord approaches. Quit the worship and praise of God that is of the head. Begin to train your heart to meditate deeply on all of God’s acts of kindness to you and your home, even as you praise, thank and love Him more and more. And you will begin to know and enjoy the joy of His salvation like never before. (Cf. Ps 50:23)
It is well with your soul.
Life Application: What is one act of God’s kindness to you that you can sit down and think over carefully today, and how will you thank Him for it from your heart?