Don't Call it Worship

[Christsfreeservant]

 

[jacks]

Do the Psalms worship God?

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Do the Psalms worship God?

People worship God. Words can express what true worship of God is and what should be its components, but words alone do not produce worship. Not counting the Scriptures, words alone can be cheap and meaningless. And you can recite the Psalms all you want and it doesn't mean that you are worshiping God. But do the Scriptures honor God? Yes, they do, for they teach the truths of God, because they are the words of God. And the Scriptures are dedicated to holiness, godliness, death to sin, and walks of obedience to the Lord. But reciting the Scriptures or the psalms doesn't mean that you are worshiping God. Does that answer your question?

 

[jacks]

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you. For me the words, feeling and action, go hand in hand. It's not just one or the other.

1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Psalm 63

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Yes, thank you. For me the words, feeling and action, go hand in hand. It's not just one or the other.

1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Psalm 63

Yes we must live in worship of our Lord in our actions and we must also express it in our words. They do work together.

 

[David Lamb]

People worship God. Words can express what true worship of God is and what should be its components, but words alone do not produce worship. Not counting the Scriptures, words alone can be cheap and meaningless. And you can recite the Psalms all you want and it doesn't mean that you are worshiping God. But do the Scriptures honor God? Yes, they do, for they teach the truths of God, because they are the words of God. And the Scriptures are dedicated to holiness, godliness, death to sin, and walks of obedience to the Lord. But reciting the Scriptures or the psalms doesn't mean that you are worshiping God. Does that answer your question?

Yes I agree. Before I was converted, I had been brought up in the Church of England, and sang from boyhood in the church choir. Each service included the singing of at least one Psalm, so over the years I got to know the psalms fairly well, but I certainly wasn't worshipping when I sang them. I was merely parroting the words.

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Yes I agree. Before I was converted, I had been brought up in the Church of England, and sang from boyhood in the church choir. Each service included the singing of at least one Psalm, so over the years I got to know the psalms fairly well, but I certainly wasn't worshipping when I sang them. I was merely parroting the words.

I have done the same. I was a singer, a voice and music major in college, and we sang the hymns in our weekly gatherings of the church, but oftentimes I was just singing and not really taking in the words. I loved/love the harmonies in the old hymns. Sometimes I was worshiping the Lord and really singing the words from my heart, based in the truth of where I was spiritually in my own life, and other times I was just singing because I loved to sing. I lost my singing voice about 5 years ago - it comes and it goes - so I don't sing as much as I used to. I do pay much more attention to words now, and if the words are biblically sound, which many today are not, then I sing them from my heart, a heart committed to the Lord.