Let us consider Psalm 22:3 from two different versions. King James: But Thou art holy, oh Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. New American Standard: Yet Thou are holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In Hebrews 13:15, we read about offering to the Lord our praises, the sacrifice of the fruit of our lips. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. We come to give the Lord praise and worship.
Anything you can imagine from the Scriptures can be established in your mind and will be very valuable to you. As you praise the Lord, imagine that you are building the habitation God wants to dwell in. When you offer up worship and praise to the Lord, you are literally creating in the spirit the throne upon which He chooses to sit. He is enthroned upon the praises of His people.
We ought to consider our worship and praise in a service more from God’s viewpoint than from ours. Worship comes from being able to relate to God on His terms, to give Him what He wants, and to please Him. We cannot be manpleasers; we must try to please God. We do that in our human relationships. We don’t go out of our way to be obnoxious; we try to think in terms of the other man and what he wants. A good salesman considers what his prospective customer is thinking and what he wants. Then he proceeds to show him that he has exactly what he wants, and soon he is ready to accept the transaction or the deal the salesman has in mind for him. He must be convinced you have what he really wants.
This is the truth that is always coming in the walk. The Lord is giving a word and saying, “Listen son, this is what you want,” and you accept it. Now let’s reverse it. We come to the Lord and say, “Lord, what do You want?” We can go to the Scriptures and find the answer. For some time God has been searching for something. He is seeking worshipers, those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Father is seeking such to worship Him and the search goes on and on. As we begin to view it more from God’s viewpoint than from our own, we come to realize that we are not just praising the Lord to get a blessing, we are not worshiping the Lord because that is the thing to do; we are worshiping Him because we want to please Him. We want to give Him what He has always been seeking.
This is very serious and cannot be stressed too much. If we do not see this, we miss everything the service is to mean to us. If we realize that we come to please the Lord, we will think the way God is thinking about the situation. If we come and say, “I must touch God; He must meet my need,” we may receive something, but not very much. The people who receive everything are those who forget themselves in their desire to relate to what God is looking for in their lives. They want to genuinely please Him, to give Him worship and praise. That is exactly the way everyone must think. God thinks the same way.
In a church you are not especially drawn to the ministries who are always looking for what they can get. You find yourself staying away from them. You say, “Lord, bless that brother; I hope he gets what he wants,” but you do not relate to him. When someone comes in who wants to really be a blessing, who is only concerned about blessing the church and the Body, about being used of the Lord and finding a way to meet people’s needs at all times, you think, “Oh, that is a precious brother; I wish he would minister to me.” You relate to him. God looks at it the same way.
Your thinking must be reversed, for you don’t normally think that way. Usually you think selfishly of your needs. Forget yourself and seek first the Kingdom of God. And that does not mean that you just seek your place in it. You are seeking for the Kingdom, you are seeking for God’s will to be done: “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and what happens? All these things will be added unto you, because immediately God puts His finger on you and says, “Ah, that is My child.” When you are working for God’s interests, you literally project yourself into a place of forgetting yourself.
The man who gets a promotion in his company is the man who is genuinely concerned about seeing the company move ahead. Incidentally, he is also the one who gets the raises in salary. Because he is taking care of the company’s interests, the company takes care of his. That is the way it works. When we have really learned what this is all about we will come and say, “Lord, we have it all figured out—You want people to worship You, You want people to praise You, and we will be those people.”
Some may say, “I thought all the time that He wanted me to work hard at the Living Word office assembling books or working on tapes. I thought God was trying to get a lot of free labor out of me.” No, that is just incidental; it really is not the big issue. He is looking for a worshiper. “Well,” you say, “I don’t worship much, but I work hard.” Then you better take a new look at your life, because much of it is not as important as you think. You may think, “I might as well just quit and give it all up but then who will do the work? I am needed.” You are not in this Walk just to salve your ego. This is not an ego trip.
You are in this walk to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will become His precious son, moving and ministering, doing His will in the earth. As you are faithful in a few things He will make you ruler over many (Matthew 25:21). We are not in this Walk because we are looking for the easy route. We want our lives to please the Lord. We desire whatever He wants. If He says, “Here son, I can trust you because you are looking after My interests; I will put you over ten cities,” those ten cities will glorify God and do the will of the Lord. You move in to do it because your delight is to please Him.
Worship the Lord first of all and give Him everything within your heart. He is enthroned upon the praises of His people. You create the throne from which He is pleased to rule. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is inevitably tied in with real living worship. Because He is Lord, you worship Him, you recognize His authority, you magnify and praise Him, you surrender all your life and all your interests to Him. He is enthroned upon those praises, upon the worship you give Him. It is not the sound we make, but the spirit behind it, that is important. We can worship and praise and sing, and still never really focus on the Lord. We can get into a rut if we are not careful. We have to be literally projected to see the Lord and to worship Him and know what we are doing.
Why are our Bless-In services successful? We have eliminated services where young people come together and are told, “This is what you need and this is what you ought to be doing.” You don’t come here for us to magnify your need; you come to worship, to bless the Lord, to give Him what He wants. Then what happens? It becomes one of the most terrific services for your need to be met too. The Lord smiles on you. He is enthroned upon your praises.
For we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 3:3. Circumcision seals God’s people. God does that for His worshipers as He circumcises their hearts. Is there something in your life you want to get rid of? You can either struggle with it, fight it and intensify your focus on it until you make yourself completely heartsick trying to overcome it, or you can become such a worshiper that God circumcises your heart and cuts away the problem. Enthrone Him on your praises and worship, and watch what He does for you in return. He is looking for worshipers and when He gets one He works him over and makes him His son. Praise Him until your praise has formed a beautiful mystical golden throne upon which He is enthroned in your life. A worshiper never lives alone. If God inhabits his praises, a worshiper always has someone with him.