Acts 16: 25 – 26
But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
I am a participant in a Divine Conference Call on Thursday’s. Besides seeking God and studying His Word, we have also been taking James advice from James 1: 22 which reads, “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” Each week we perform a practicum. One week we focused on reading our Bibles every day. Another week we concerned ourselves with praying every day, and so on. This has proved a good experiment. We find our weaknesses and our strengths. We have learned the areas where we need to press in and the areas which come easily to us. The greatest thing I have learned comes from the week we determined to praise and worship God for at least five minutes every day.
First, I found that this was the most challenging of all the practices. We endevoured to lean into the worship side of things by which I mean, specifically, worshiping God for who He is rather than for what He has done. It was not a time of thanksgiving, nor a time of prayer. It wasn’t about what God has done for us but simply glorifying Him in His grandeur and majesty. The second thing I discovered from this practice was from my own experience. I found that nothing opened me to the Spirit mentally, emotionally and spiritually than worship and praise. I heard God better that week than any other week. Although I find worshiping God harder than reading my Bible, I also found that by pressing through, I learned more about glorifying Him with my words. Singing His praises releases something in me. It takes me out of my intellectual self and I connect with simply being a child of God.
God often, I could perhaps even say always, meets me over His Word. That is where we commune daily. However, this worship of God for who He is was the hardest and yet most successful of all the weeks of our practicum. I know that when I sit down with my Bible, the Father will sit right next to me. I guarantee the Holy Spirit will teach me something I did not know before. However, as I praised God, the Spirit was released in an entirely different way. All of a sudden, I was hearing God’s voice speak so much that I could barely continue for having to write things down. I began getting ideas. The flow of the Holy Spirit was exactly like the river of living waters.
You see, in today’s passage, how praise released the power of God into Paul and Silas’ situation. It can, and will, do the same thing for us, but we need to practice. We must learn how to open our hearts and let sincere praise flow forth, honoring the God of our hearts. We need to learn to connect with the intimate love we have for the Father. From that place of intimacy, it becomes a simple matter to let words of adoration and praise flow out. I adjure you to join us in our practice of the Word of God. Practice worshiping our God. Practice lifting worship up to Him. I believe you will find a new and deeper connection with Him when you do. Will you join us? Will you put feet to your faith and let God see and hear your Christian conviction?
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