Be Still and Know - "It Is Good To Give Thanks To The Lord"

(from www.premierchristianradio.com)

1. Psalm 92.1-3 NLT
   
   'It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre.'
   
   Throughout the Psalms, we are continually reminded of how good it is to worship God. In Psalm 84.10 the psalmist says that he would rather spend a single day in the presence of God than a thousand anywhere else! Our verses today remind us of the importance of worshipping God throughout the day. Worship needs to be woven into the fabric of our lives. It isn’t something that we can do occasionally or half-heartedly. It needs to claim the best of our energies and attention.
   
   Worship is of such huge importance because absolutely every aspect of life is affected by it. The thought of worship being confined to a couple of hours in church once a week is completely foreign to the Bible. When we worship, we declare the greatness of God and seek to bring our lives into line with his will. One of the most comprehensive definitions of worship was provided by William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during the Second World War. He wrote, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the
   will to the purpose of God.”
   
   Those challenging words are worthy of very careful reflection because, all too easily, what we do in church can be cheapened. Whatever style of worship we are used to, it is so easy for it to become a performance which we judge by our own particular musical preferences. Although worship needs to be focused entirely on God, it is very easy for us to focus on the people who lead us and our reactions to their gifts and idiosyncrasies. True worship of the living God brings us to life in a way that nothing else can, and so we need to make sure that it becomes increasingly central to our lives, however busy we happen to be.
   
   Question: Give yourself a few minutes to think this through. How central is worship in your life?
   
   Prayer: Lord God, I ask you in the power of your Holy Spirit to give me a constantly renewed desire to worship you with all of my heart. Amen