*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Monday, July 18, 2005
Praise until the spirit of worship comes.
Worship until the glory comes.
Then, stand in glory.
Praise as an Instrument of Harvest
A voice of praise is always a voice of victory. That's why the enemy always fights praise. Praise the Lord whether you feel like it or not--that would be a sacrifice of praise. When we come into the house of the Lord, we can say, "Lord, create praise in me." Then suddenly, we begin to feel a little bubbling up from the innermost part of our being, and we find a "hallelujah", an "amen", a "praise the Lord", or some other word of praise coming forth. We find ourselves praising in ways that we have never praised before. The Holy Spirit will begin to birth it in you.
Speaking in tongues doesn't come through the mind. It comes through the Spirit. So does the created praise that I speak. I am not thinking, "I want to praise the Lord," I come into His presence, open my spirit to Him, and my mouth automatically begins to proclaim His praises, as the Spirit of God begins to move through me. I find myself praising God and, through the ministry of praise, I come to know Him in ways that I never knew Him before.
This is what God means by offering "the sacrifice of praise." It is not a grevious sacrifice. This sacrifice is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord and also to me. I find myself in the presence of God, not tongue-tied, but overflowing, not able to contain myself. The words come easily: "You're so wonderful, Jesus. How beautiful You are. You are worthy of all praise."
We need to read the book of Psalms and get its vocabulary within our soul, get its character in us. God wants us to have that flow of His Spirit within us so that we don't stand there speechless. God has given us a voice to be lifted up in praise to Him. If we have nothing else to offer Him, we have that wonderful voice.
There is a liberty that comes from putting your praise into audible words. It releases the rive of God to flow out of you as you open your mouth and begin to declare the goodness of the Lord in the land of living, declaring the miracle of the Lord, declaring the healing of the Lord, declaring the victory of the Lord, declaring the newness of the Lord, using your voice as a trumpet, sounding forth the blessings of the Lord.
The more you declare His blessings, the more you have to declare. The more you speak about His goodness, the more you have to speak.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. Psa 89:1
Just as involuntary as breathing, there is a realm in God of "still praising" Him. You know the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit that He, the Spirit within, has taken over and is praising--even in the moments when you may have been anxious. On one level you are concerned about the next situation. And when you suddenly come to yourself, you find that while you have been on this level, pondering and anxious, wondering what the answer to your problem is, on another level, the Holy Ghost has been singing a song through you. You have been singing the whole time and didn't even know you were singing.
When you suddenly hear yourself singing, you realize that the Holy Ghost was praising, the Holy Ghost was confident, the Holy Ghost was not worried. The Holy Ghost within you was at peace. That praising dimension in God was totally in control. You just needed to let that natural side go and let the Spirit come forth in ascendancy.
There is such a gentle lightness about it. It is that song of the Lord, that praise of the Lord, not hard work in prayer. We make prayer so heavy that we all need to be " super spiritual". That's not necessary. Just mention of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Just keep on singing. Keep on praising.
In the night season you can wake up and, instead of being distressed and disturbed, you can sing.
Some find it difficult to believe that they can stand in their house praising God and, in this way, help to bring revival to their community. You may affect not only your community by sowing praise. You can stand in one place and minister to the Lord and effect revival to the ends of the earth. Sow to heaven.
You can never progress in God so much that you discard praise. The Lord leads us on into greater realms, greater capacities, greater abilities, greater skills. He teaches us how to move out more in faith in praise, how to have our faith operative in the area of praise. But, we will continue praising Him throughout the endless ages of eternity. We never outgrow praise. Praise is eternal just as God is and we are.
12 Now King David was told, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
2 Sam 6
The Lord showed me that if we wanted to bring in the Ark of God we would have to dance too. After David had successfully returned the Ark to its place, he rewarded all the men and women who had helped him with a piece of meat, a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine (2 Sam 6:19). He thus became the only one in the Scripture to ever feed a nation. He did it after he came back to Jerusalem dancing. Nobody else fed a triple portion except David.
The Lord said to me, "If you want to feed a nation, and if you want to feed a triple portion, you must dance." He didn't tell me I had to dance in order to be saved, He didn't say I had to dance in order to go to heaven. He didn't say I had to dance to be part of what is happening in the local church. He was letting me know that dancing brings an anointing that feeds the nations the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. If I wanted to feed the nations a triple portion, I had to begin to dance.
I love the challenges of the Lord! We must live by the challenges of the Holy Ghost. Something in our human nature causes us to rebel when other people give us a good suggestion. But, when the Lord speaks to us, we had better listen. We also need to learn to be just as responsive to the servants of the Lord as we are to God.
The first day I was so self-conscious, so sure that everybody was watching me, that everybody could see me. At our campmeetnig everyone was so caught up in the Spirit that they hardly know what that others are doing. When the power of God comes, when the anointing falls, you may think that every eye is on you. But you can get lost in the crowd easily, even if there isn't a crowd. There is a crowd of angels and of the anointing. And may things are happening around you.
That first day I don't think I did much more than wiggle my toes inside my shoes. But, everyday I made myself available to dance before the Lord. Daily I became more and more free. At the end of the month, the Lord spoke to me through my mother prophetically. She didn't know what God was saying to me. Nobody even noticed I was trying to dance a little. The Lord said to me, "I am going to change your ministry. I am going to send you to kings, queens, people of position, and you will speak to them of Me."
I believe dancing brings an anointing for the nations. You need that anointing to flow through you every day. Dancing brings that anointing. If you are minstering in some place where you don't have that liberty, get in your closet and dance a little before the Lord. If you have that dance in your feet, you will have an anointing to feed the bread, the meat, and the wine unto nations.
When our dance and our praise pleases the King, we can have whatever we want. Praise creates an atmosphere in which miracles happen.
When I dance, I always feel the anointing on my feet, and I know the promise is that whenever the soles of our feet tread, the land is ours.
Every place where you set your foot will be yours. Deut 11:24
I have danced on nation after nation. I have found that if you dance on nations in the realm of the Spirit, God will also give you the opportunity to dance on them physically. One of my friends said, "Ruth, I remember the first time I heard you say that you had many times danced all over the map of England even before you ever ministered here. We thought it was the most outrageous statement we had ever heard."
Well, outrageous or not, I did it. I didn't literally pit a map down and dance on it, but I knew the shape of England. I did this by the burden and vision of the Lord.
Is is powerful? It's powerful. You can stand in your hometown and possess nations. Dancing is one of the most effective ways to do it. God will give you all the land on which you tread for Him.
There is power in the dance. There's anointing for the nations. You'll find that you have an anointing to feed nations as you begin to dance more before the Lord. Don't let a day go by that you don't dance. Praise the Lord in the dance. Let the anointing go from the top of your head to the sole of your feet. Praise is a powerful instrument of harvest!
Praise as Warfare
The lifting up of hands is one of the most powerful praise ministries we have. It is as powerful as dancing. God said, "I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing." (1 Tim 2:8)
When I stand before the Lord, I don't keep my hands at "half mast." I raise them up high because I need the strength that comes from on high. Sometimes we don't need to declare anything. We just need to stand with our hands uplifted. That very standing in the presence of God with our hands raised is, in itself, a very powerful declaration.
When the battle was raging and Moses had his hands upraised, the battle went in favor of Israel. But when his hands began to sag, the battle went against Israel. Aaron and Hur saw it and rushed to Moses' side to hold up his hands until Israel prevailed.
As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset." Exo 17:11-12
In November of 1987, I was praying when I saw a vision of Moses with his hands lifted. I saw the prevailing power manifested. Then, the Lord quickly took me to the next generation--Joshua leading Israelites against Amorites. Israel had everything it needed to win the battle except TIME. Suddenly, faith dropped into Joshua's spirit to do something for which there was no precedent so that there would be time to win. He commanded both sun and moon to stand still.
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel:
"Sun, stand still over Gibeon;
And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still,
And the moon stopped,
Till the people had revenge
Upon their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
Your praises change the atmosphere. Your praises can change the atmosphere in your house. Not all of us live in houses that have only Spirit-filled people in them, and sometimes you have to contend with atmospheres that aren't correct. If you want that atmosphere to change, praise the Lord. Your praise permeates the room with the fragrance of God and will change the atmosphere in your household. Stop criticizing and murmuring and complaining, start praising.
Your voice is a powerful instrument of warfare. You can bring the glory in any place in the world by your voice.
The Lord spoke to us and told us to sing a new song to Him. We didn't know what He meant. But, when God speaks to us and we don't understand, He keeps saying it until we do understand. God is very persistent. He can have the same message for a very long time. If we are hearing the same message over and over, maybe it's because we haven't stepped into it yet. The Lord will move quickly to something else if we catch on quickly what He is saying.
"But, Lord," I said, "people come 10,000 miles to be in one service. We don't want to make mistakes in front of them. What if it doesn't work?" Personally, I like an occasional stutter or stammer in a service. When we are too polished, it may be because we have done it that way too many times. We are doing by routine, and it lacks freshness. The stammer indicates that people are moving into a new territory, reaching into revelation by the Spirit.
He kept after us until we started singing spontaneously. In this way, the Holy Spirit teaches us.
How did David get this wealth of material that we call the Book of Psalms? He sang it. He heard it for the first when it came forth from his lips. We hear the new song for the first time when we speak it forth in a prophetic way. It is the prophetic song of the Lord being released. David didn't sit down and think through each Psalm, compose the music, then put the words and the music together. His tongue became the "pen of the ready writer", as he began to praise His Lord.
And because David had versatility of experience in God, he had versatility of experience in song. Because life brought him many types of trials, he could sing about his enemies, he could sing about his joys, he could sing about his triumphs.
Don't just sing the familiar choruses you already know. Let a little song come out of your spirit. Keep it simple, one little verse at a time. Don't get too complicated.
Singing a new song does two things for you. It teaches you how to concentrate on God and it teaches you simplicity. It is possible to be singing a familiar song, and at time same time, be thinking about dinner. You can't do that with the new song. You'll lose it. You have to concentrate on God to sing the new song. If there is something that can do more, why reach back to the familiar? God is moving on.
Many times we are guilty of doing things as we have always done them, while God is moving in some new way. We're still travelling down Highway #1 while He's already opened I-95 to us. It's bigger, broader and faster. But we've always travelled on Highway #1. Highway #1 will get you somewhere, but I-95 doesn't have the traffic that will slow you down on Highway #1. So God lets us do our own thing while He has opened other ways in the heavenlies.
When we are lifted up in singing, God begins to give the answers to our trouble. First, He lifts us up above the cares, the problems, the needs. There is a realm of ease in God. We make spiritual things difficult. He wants to make them easy. He wants the King of Glory to come in and fight our battles for us.
Most of the time we are so busy fighting our own battles that we don't let the Lord do it for us. Remember when Jehoshaphat went out against the kings, the singers and dancers(praisers) went before the army. Because the praisers went before the army, they didn't even need to fight [2 Chr 20:21-24]. And you will never need to fight your own battle if you move into this realm of praise and worship unto the Lord. The more we sing to Him, the more He will fight our battles.
Praise as Ascent
You can praise God when everything around you is totally cold and believe God to create praise within you. When I come into the Lord's house and begin to praise Him, I must be conscious that I'm ascending. I'm ascending the hill of the Lord, I'm coming up into the high place of God.
Have you ever driven with somebody that is learning to drive without automatic transmission and is using clutch on a hill? As they begin to ascend a hill, they go up a little and slide back a little, go up the hill a little an slide back a little? The ride is so jerky. Have you ever been in a song service that was like that? You experience spiritual whiplash.
The person leading the service begins to sing, and you feel yourself ascending. Then he does something else or perhaps changes rhythms and you slip back down. With the next song you go a little higher, then slip back down again. By the end of the song service, you have spiritual whiplash. This happens because the song leader hasn't learned to ascend in the Spirit.
When the anointing falls on a particular song, stay with it until you get to the top of the hill. It's not the song that's important, it's the anointing. Some song leaders insist on singing a chorus twice or three times no matter what the Spirit of God is doing. Sing until you get to the top of the hill. Be conscious that you are ascending the mountain of the Lord. Don't stop praising til you get to the Holy Place.
Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who may stand in His holy place? [Psa 24:3]
Sometimes it takes 15 min of singing and praising, sometimes it might take 10 min. On another day, in another service it might take 20 min. Or you may get so hungry for God that you run quickly up the hill of the Lord and get there in 3 min. The time will vary, but there will always be the ascent. There is always the entering in. We come from the outside world. And we always "enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise." Be thankful unto Him and bless His name." Praise is the entering in, and praise is the ascent.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Eveline pops at |11:41 PM|
Captivate my heart, dear Jesus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Praise until the spirit of worship comes.
Worship until the glory comes.
Then, stand in glory.
Praise as an Instrument of Harvest
A voice of praise is always a voice of victory. That's why the enemy always fights praise. Praise the Lord whether you feel like it or not--that would be a sacrifice of praise. When we come into the house of the Lord, we can say, "Lord, create praise in me." Then suddenly, we begin to feel a little bubbling up from the innermost part of our being, and we find a "hallelujah", an "amen", a "praise the Lord", or some other word of praise coming forth. We find ourselves praising in ways that we have never praised before. The Holy Spirit will begin to birth it in you.
Speaking in tongues doesn't come through the mind. It comes through the Spirit. So does the created praise that I speak. I am not thinking, "I want to praise the Lord," I come into His presence, open my spirit to Him, and my mouth automatically begins to proclaim His praises, as the Spirit of God begins to move through me. I find myself praising God and, through the ministry of praise, I come to know Him in ways that I never knew Him before.
This is what God means by offering "the sacrifice of praise." It is not a grevious sacrifice. This sacrifice is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord and also to me. I find myself in the presence of God, not tongue-tied, but overflowing, not able to contain myself. The words come easily: "You're so wonderful, Jesus. How beautiful You are. You are worthy of all praise."
We need to read the book of Psalms and get its vocabulary within our soul, get its character in us. God wants us to have that flow of His Spirit within us so that we don't stand there speechless. God has given us a voice to be lifted up in praise to Him. If we have nothing else to offer Him, we have that wonderful voice.
There is a liberty that comes from putting your praise into audible words. It releases the rive of God to flow out of you as you open your mouth and begin to declare the goodness of the Lord in the land of living, declaring the miracle of the Lord, declaring the healing of the Lord, declaring the victory of the Lord, declaring the newness of the Lord, using your voice as a trumpet, sounding forth the blessings of the Lord.
The more you declare His blessings, the more you have to declare. The more you speak about His goodness, the more you have to speak.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. Psa 89:1
Just as involuntary as breathing, there is a realm in God of "still praising" Him. You know the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit that He, the Spirit within, has taken over and is praising--even in the moments when you may have been anxious. On one level you are concerned about the next situation. And when you suddenly come to yourself, you find that while you have been on this level, pondering and anxious, wondering what the answer to your problem is, on another level, the Holy Ghost has been singing a song through you. You have been singing the whole time and didn't even know you were singing.
When you suddenly hear yourself singing, you realize that the Holy Ghost was praising, the Holy Ghost was confident, the Holy Ghost was not worried. The Holy Ghost within you was at peace. That praising dimension in God was totally in control. You just needed to let that natural side go and let the Spirit come forth in ascendancy.
There is such a gentle lightness about it. It is that song of the Lord, that praise of the Lord, not hard work in prayer. We make prayer so heavy that we all need to be " super spiritual". That's not necessary. Just mention of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Just keep on singing. Keep on praising.
In the night season you can wake up and, instead of being distressed and disturbed, you can sing.
Some find it difficult to believe that they can stand in their house praising God and, in this way, help to bring revival to their community. You may affect not only your community by sowing praise. You can stand in one place and minister to the Lord and effect revival to the ends of the earth. Sow to heaven.
You can never progress in God so much that you discard praise. The Lord leads us on into greater realms, greater capacities, greater abilities, greater skills. He teaches us how to move out more in faith in praise, how to have our faith operative in the area of praise. But, we will continue praising Him throughout the endless ages of eternity. We never outgrow praise. Praise is eternal just as God is and we are.
12 Now King David was told, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
2 Sam 6
The Lord showed me that if we wanted to bring in the Ark of God we would have to dance too. After David had successfully returned the Ark to its place, he rewarded all the men and women who had helped him with a piece of meat, a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine (2 Sam 6:19). He thus became the only one in the Scripture to ever feed a nation. He did it after he came back to Jerusalem dancing. Nobody else fed a triple portion except David.
The Lord said to me, "If you want to feed a nation, and if you want to feed a triple portion, you must dance." He didn't tell me I had to dance in order to be saved, He didn't say I had to dance in order to go to heaven. He didn't say I had to dance to be part of what is happening in the local church. He was letting me know that dancing brings an anointing that feeds the nations the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. If I wanted to feed the nations a triple portion, I had to begin to dance.
I love the challenges of the Lord! We must live by the challenges of the Holy Ghost. Something in our human nature causes us to rebel when other people give us a good suggestion. But, when the Lord speaks to us, we had better listen. We also need to learn to be just as responsive to the servants of the Lord as we are to God.
The first day I was so self-conscious, so sure that everybody was watching me, that everybody could see me. At our campmeetnig everyone was so caught up in the Spirit that they hardly know what that others are doing. When the power of God comes, when the anointing falls, you may think that every eye is on you. But you can get lost in the crowd easily, even if there isn't a crowd. There is a crowd of angels and of the anointing. And may things are happening around you.
That first day I don't think I did much more than wiggle my toes inside my shoes. But, everyday I made myself available to dance before the Lord. Daily I became more and more free. At the end of the month, the Lord spoke to me through my mother prophetically. She didn't know what God was saying to me. Nobody even noticed I was trying to dance a little. The Lord said to me, "I am going to change your ministry. I am going to send you to kings, queens, people of position, and you will speak to them of Me."
I believe dancing brings an anointing for the nations. You need that anointing to flow through you every day. Dancing brings that anointing. If you are minstering in some place where you don't have that liberty, get in your closet and dance a little before the Lord. If you have that dance in your feet, you will have an anointing to feed the bread, the meat, and the wine unto nations.
When our dance and our praise pleases the King, we can have whatever we want. Praise creates an atmosphere in which miracles happen.
When I dance, I always feel the anointing on my feet, and I know the promise is that whenever the soles of our feet tread, the land is ours.
Every place where you set your foot will be yours. Deut 11:24
I have danced on nation after nation. I have found that if you dance on nations in the realm of the Spirit, God will also give you the opportunity to dance on them physically. One of my friends said, "Ruth, I remember the first time I heard you say that you had many times danced all over the map of England even before you ever ministered here. We thought it was the most outrageous statement we had ever heard."
Well, outrageous or not, I did it. I didn't literally pit a map down and dance on it, but I knew the shape of England. I did this by the burden and vision of the Lord.
Is is powerful? It's powerful. You can stand in your hometown and possess nations. Dancing is one of the most effective ways to do it. God will give you all the land on which you tread for Him.
There is power in the dance. There's anointing for the nations. You'll find that you have an anointing to feed nations as you begin to dance more before the Lord. Don't let a day go by that you don't dance. Praise the Lord in the dance. Let the anointing go from the top of your head to the sole of your feet. Praise is a powerful instrument of harvest!
Praise as Warfare
The lifting up of hands is one of the most powerful praise ministries we have. It is as powerful as dancing. God said, "I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing." (1 Tim 2:8)
When I stand before the Lord, I don't keep my hands at "half mast." I raise them up high because I need the strength that comes from on high. Sometimes we don't need to declare anything. We just need to stand with our hands uplifted. That very standing in the presence of God with our hands raised is, in itself, a very powerful declaration.
When the battle was raging and Moses had his hands upraised, the battle went in favor of Israel. But when his hands began to sag, the battle went against Israel. Aaron and Hur saw it and rushed to Moses' side to hold up his hands until Israel prevailed.
As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset." Exo 17:11-12
In November of 1987, I was praying when I saw a vision of Moses with his hands lifted. I saw the prevailing power manifested. Then, the Lord quickly took me to the next generation--Joshua leading Israelites against Amorites. Israel had everything it needed to win the battle except TIME. Suddenly, faith dropped into Joshua's spirit to do something for which there was no precedent so that there would be time to win. He commanded both sun and moon to stand still.
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel:
"Sun, stand still over Gibeon;
And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still,
And the moon stopped,
Till the people had revenge
Upon their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
Your praises change the atmosphere. Your praises can change the atmosphere in your house. Not all of us live in houses that have only Spirit-filled people in them, and sometimes you have to contend with atmospheres that aren't correct. If you want that atmosphere to change, praise the Lord. Your praise permeates the room with the fragrance of God and will change the atmosphere in your household. Stop criticizing and murmuring and complaining, start praising.
Your voice is a powerful instrument of warfare. You can bring the glory in any place in the world by your voice.
The Lord spoke to us and told us to sing a new song to Him. We didn't know what He meant. But, when God speaks to us and we don't understand, He keeps saying it until we do understand. God is very persistent. He can have the same message for a very long time. If we are hearing the same message over and over, maybe it's because we haven't stepped into it yet. The Lord will move quickly to something else if we catch on quickly what He is saying.
"But, Lord," I said, "people come 10,000 miles to be in one service. We don't want to make mistakes in front of them. What if it doesn't work?" Personally, I like an occasional stutter or stammer in a service. When we are too polished, it may be because we have done it that way too many times. We are doing by routine, and it lacks freshness. The stammer indicates that people are moving into a new territory, reaching into revelation by the Spirit.
He kept after us until we started singing spontaneously. In this way, the Holy Spirit teaches us.
How did David get this wealth of material that we call the Book of Psalms? He sang it. He heard it for the first when it came forth from his lips. We hear the new song for the first time when we speak it forth in a prophetic way. It is the prophetic song of the Lord being released. David didn't sit down and think through each Psalm, compose the music, then put the words and the music together. His tongue became the "pen of the ready writer", as he began to praise His Lord.
And because David had versatility of experience in God, he had versatility of experience in song. Because life brought him many types of trials, he could sing about his enemies, he could sing about his joys, he could sing about his triumphs.
Don't just sing the familiar choruses you already know. Let a little song come out of your spirit. Keep it simple, one little verse at a time. Don't get too complicated.
Singing a new song does two things for you. It teaches you how to concentrate on God and it teaches you simplicity. It is possible to be singing a familiar song, and at time same time, be thinking about dinner. You can't do that with the new song. You'll lose it. You have to concentrate on God to sing the new song. If there is something that can do more, why reach back to the familiar? God is moving on.
Many times we are guilty of doing things as we have always done them, while God is moving in some new way. We're still travelling down Highway #1 while He's already opened I-95 to us. It's bigger, broader and faster. But we've always travelled on Highway #1. Highway #1 will get you somewhere, but I-95 doesn't have the traffic that will slow you down on Highway #1. So God lets us do our own thing while He has opened other ways in the heavenlies.
When we are lifted up in singing, God begins to give the answers to our trouble. First, He lifts us up above the cares, the problems, the needs. There is a realm of ease in God. We make spiritual things difficult. He wants to make them easy. He wants the King of Glory to come in and fight our battles for us.
Most of the time we are so busy fighting our own battles that we don't let the Lord do it for us. Remember when Jehoshaphat went out against the kings, the singers and dancers(praisers) went before the army. Because the praisers went before the army, they didn't even need to fight [2 Chr 20:21-24]. And you will never need to fight your own battle if you move into this realm of praise and worship unto the Lord. The more we sing to Him, the more He will fight our battles.
Praise as Ascent
You can praise God when everything around you is totally cold and believe God to create praise within you. When I come into the Lord's house and begin to praise Him, I must be conscious that I'm ascending. I'm ascending the hill of the Lord, I'm coming up into the high place of God.
Have you ever driven with somebody that is learning to drive without automatic transmission and is using clutch on a hill? As they begin to ascend a hill, they go up a little and slide back a little, go up the hill a little an slide back a little? The ride is so jerky. Have you ever been in a song service that was like that? You experience spiritual whiplash.
The person leading the service begins to sing, and you feel yourself ascending. Then he does something else or perhaps changes rhythms and you slip back down. With the next song you go a little higher, then slip back down again. By the end of the song service, you have spiritual whiplash. This happens because the song leader hasn't learned to ascend in the Spirit.
When the anointing falls on a particular song, stay with it until you get to the top of the hill. It's not the song that's important, it's the anointing. Some song leaders insist on singing a chorus twice or three times no matter what the Spirit of God is doing. Sing until you get to the top of the hill. Be conscious that you are ascending the mountain of the Lord. Don't stop praising til you get to the Holy Place.
Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who may stand in His holy place? [Psa 24:3]
Sometimes it takes 15 min of singing and praising, sometimes it might take 10 min. On another day, in another service it might take 20 min. Or you may get so hungry for God that you run quickly up the hill of the Lord and get there in 3 min. The time will vary, but there will always be the ascent. There is always the entering in. We come from the outside world. And we always "enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise." Be thankful unto Him and bless His name." Praise is the entering in, and praise is the ascent.
- Glory by Ruth Ward Heflin
[Part 1]
Eveline pops at |11:41 PM|