Good morning. Good morning, good morning. What a lovely morning this is.
It seems that the Lord has heard some of the prayers that Lance Plumer and I have been praying ahead of this conference. It almost seemed like a cool day this morning.
When I go to the United States, I always used to ask my friends in the prayer group to pray for two things. The first one is that, years back, I usually had a bad allergy in the summertime—hay fever. It was terrible, especially during hot weather. But in 1976, the Lord took it away from me, and I have not had it since. It had gone on for seven years previous to that.
So now they do not have to pray for that anymore. But then I ask them to pray for the weather conditions, because we cool-temperamented people from far up north have some problems coming to this kind of weather. So I will rejoice this morning in the Lord, seeing some answers to prayer.
I am sure that Lance has been looking to the Lord, as I have been looking to the Lord, for cooler weather. I heard it was terrible last year, so I just thank the Lord I was not here. I was way up in Finland. It is nice and cool up in Finland.
Well, you see, we have got such an illustration during the whole life of the prayer of an earnest, righteous man—to pray like Elijah, and the rain poured down. And even the other Scripture, where the fire came down and there was thundering and lightning. Praise the Lord.
I just hope that nobody will begin to pray for a stop to this good weather.
Well, I just want to share with you this morning on the matter of prayer and praise. Now I think we begin to come into some more specific things concerning the prayer life.
I do believe there is a very strong connection between prayer and praise. I hardly can find any Scripture in the Book speaking on prayer where we are not exhorted to give thanks, to praise, or to worship.
It seems to me that prayer and worship, prayer and praise, are two things that are knitted closely together and cannot be separated. If we really want to be effective in prayer, I do believe that we must learn, first of all, to worship and to praise the Lord. Then we will be able to really come into effective prayer in our lives.
We can look at a few Scriptures to open with. First Thessalonians 5:
Rejoice always;
pray without ceasing;
in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.
Quench not the Spirit.
I do see a kind of connection here. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing. Somehow, we are not able to endure and obey the commandment of praying without ceasing if we have not learned to rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice always, and then pray without ceasing.
So this matter of praising, this matter of worship, is something that is linked to the matter of prayer. And it also says, “In everything give thanks.” So we must learn to praise if we are going to be effective intercessors.
Turn to Colossians 4, verse 2:
Continue stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving.
Again, you have the combination of prayer and thanksgiving. We can go to a third place, Philippians 4:6:
In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Prayer and supplication—with something added to it, with another element: with thanksgiving. So we do see that it is very clear in the Word of God that prayer and praise are linked together. If we want to be effective in prayer, we must learn to be effective in praise and worship.
Now, what will worship do? What will praise do for us in the matter of prayer? I think that it will really enable us to come into the presence of the Lord.
We all believe and understand that we cannot be effective in prayer until we have come before the Lord, until we have entered into His very presence. It is then that prayer begins really to operate in our lives. So it is important for us to know how we can come into the presence of the Lord, how we can make contact.
This is a problem we find everywhere with the Lord’s people: they have great problems making contact with the Lord. Many have given up going to prayer meetings because they feel it is so heavy. They feel that their prayers are coming out of their mouths, going up, hitting the ceiling, and falling back on their heads.
They have no contact. Then they lose heart, get disappointed, and say, “What is the use of joining in the prayer meeting? I cannot get through. I cannot make contact with the Lord.”
It is so important that we know how we can come into the presence of the Lord, because only when we come into the presence of the Lord and make contact with Him can we really start praying.
I am a man of communication. I have been in the telephone company for fifteen years, and I know that if you want to make a phone call, it is no use going to the telephone, lifting off the receiver, and starting to talk.
You have to make contact first. You know how to do that: you put your little finger into the holes and begin—or you press the button and begin to dial. Then, when you hear somebody at the other end, you begin talking.
It is so important to get the contact before you can begin your conversation. This is the same in the matter of prayer. Until we really get into the presence of the Lord and have made contact with Him, we cannot really pray according to His will.
I do believe some people do not need the telephone. I have a member of my family—whenever she calls us, I tell her, “Well, you could put down the receiver and open the window and yell, because I will hear you.”
Well, this is another problem. Some of us think that we ought really to yell and call and shout. This is not necessary. Sometimes it is good to have a joyful noise. We have a group that call themselves “A Joyful Noise,” but sometimes I announce them when they are singing in a gospel meeting and say, “Now we will listen to ‘Awful Noise.’”
We do not have to shout and yell. What we need is to make the contact, so we know that the Lord is at the other end of the line and He is listening. We have contact with Him.
This is what praise will do. If you turn to Psalm 100, the very well-known psalm, it speaks of, we could say, the procedure of how we come into the presence of the Lord. There is a certain procedure that we have to observe when we want to get into the presence of the Lord.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness:
Come before His presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord He is God:
It is He that hath made us, and we are His;
We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise:
Give thanks unto Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness endureth for ever,
And His faithfulness unto all generations.
Here we have some things that show us the importance of learning to praise the Lord and to come before Him in the right manner, observing the procedure that He has ordered for anybody who wants to come into His presence.
I often say, if you want to be around the throne, you must join those who are there, and you must do what they are doing. You know what they are doing day and night before the throne: they are worshiping the Lamb and the One who sits on the throne.
It is impossible to imagine that someone could stand in the presence of the Lord and not be a part of that worship and praise. Wherever the Lord is, and wherever His presence is, it is surrounded with worship and praise day and night.
So if we are to enter into His presence, we have to learn to come in the right manner and observe the procedure that He has given us. The psalmist says, “Come before Him with joyful singing.”
I do believe it is really essential that we learn to sing—really sing from our hearts—to come before the Lord with joyful singing. Then it says in verse 4, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.”
I imagine that there are some big, thick doors separating people from the presence of the Lord. Not everyone can run into the presence of the Lord just like that. Oh, no. He is the holy God.
You cannot just run into His presence whatsoever. You have to learn to come in the way that you ought to come, because you are coming into the presence of the King.
I cannot go into the presence of our queen just as I am. It is a long procedure if I want to come before our queen. I had to do certain things.
I was the one who took care of the old king’s telephone exchange when I was in the telephone company. I never shall forget my boss. When he handed over to me that privileged job of looking after the royal telephone exchange, he said to me, “Mr. Fascius, do not you ever go down there without wearing a tie and a nice clean shirt, and put on your jacket and brush your shoes.”
“Because you never know: when you walk in the royal court, you may just run into the king. Then he will say, ‘Who is that fellow there?’ I want you to be a worthy representative of the Royal Danish Telephone Company.”
So we had to learn how to get into the presence of the king. In old times, it was very difficult to come into the presence of the king. Even when we read in the Old Testament, we know that it was not an easy thing.
For instance, Queen Esther, when she was to appear before the king, it could be dangerous. If you went in the wrong way, it was a risk; she could risk her life. We have to come into the presence of the Lord in the right manner. He is the worthy King, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
I used to imagine that these big gates are closed for everyone who really does not know the right procedure. But here you have it: “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.”
It is as if—in the fairy tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers—the robbers had hidden all the treasures and stolen goods in a hidden place with the door locked. Only the one who knew the right word could open the door, and the right word was, “Open sesame.” If they did not know that word, they could not enter in.
But when we come in the morning—I do not know how you feel in the morning, but I feel like a piece of Sahara. My tongue is like a piece of sandpaper.
The other day in Raleigh, I really thought that something new was happening. I woke up and saw on my watch that it was ten after five. I felt so good and so alive that I thought, “Oh boy, you are just becoming like Hudson Taylor. He got up every morning at five o’clock and worshiped the Lord. Great, great—the miracle has happened.”
But then I had a strange feeling that something was wrong. When I went out into the bathroom, I heard noise in the house. I went into the living room, and there was Mrs. Marmalade all dressed up. Then I realized that my watch had stopped. It was half past seven, and they were all ready to have their lunch.
But the thing that comforted me is that I have read another version of the life story of Hudson Taylor, a more honest one. It is true that he got up at five o’clock in the morning, but after an hour he went to bed again.
Well, I feel so relieved now. We are of the same nature as the rest, are we not?
But we have to learn to come before the Lord in the right manner. It is a problem sometimes to make contact, and that is why some of us have such great problems becoming constant in prayer. We just cannot get through.
It is as if we bang our heads through these gates and they will not yield; they will not open up. We cannot come into the presence of the Lord. But we ought to understand that we can come and make contact if we really know how to praise and worship Him.
A friend of mine always says to me and to our friends whenever he ministers in our midst, “If you have got ten minutes during the day—I hope you have got more time for the Lord—but let us say you have got ten minutes: use eight minutes to praise and worship the Lord, and you will find that the last two minutes will be very effective in prayer.”
Because as soon as you come before the Lord and are in His presence, prayer will not be a problem. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing.
So we must know how to exercise our spirits, how to make contact with God, and how to come into His presence.
I was reading about being filled with the Spirit in the Swedish Bible the other day, in Ephesians 5:18, and I saw something that really made an impression upon me.
Be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit;
speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.
Now, in the Swedish Bible, and even in the Danish too, there is no separation between the phrase “be filled with the Spirit” and then “speaking to one another.” In fact, it is translated like this: “Be filled with the Spirit as you speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
That is to say, we need to understand that being filled with the Spirit is our basic need when we want to learn to pray. We need the assistance and power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be filled with the Spirit in order to be able to pray.
But sometimes we feel that being filled with the Spirit is something that we have to sit upon our chair and wait for. Someday, something comes in through the open window, hits us upon the head, and we get so blessed that we turn the white out in our eyes, and the tongue comes forth and runs like a propeller. Then we can begin to praise and worship.
I think we all know that we have to exercise our spirits. We have to cooperate with the Lord. Even in the matter of being filled with the Spirit, nothing happens automatically while we wait in a passive condition. It is dangerous to get passive. We must be an active people.
We must learn to exercise our spirit. This is how we exercise our spirit: we begin to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and to sing and make melody with our hearts to the Lord.
That is how we begin to get into the presence of the Lord—how these gates yield and open up. We come into the presence of the Lord, and we are ready for prayer and for spiritual warfare.
In 1 Corinthians 14, he speaks about how we can exercise our spirits.
For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth; but in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries.
He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.
I do thank the Lord that when He filled me with His Spirit, He gave me the gift of speaking in tongues. Whenever I feel dull, dead, and empty within—and I very often do, especially in the morning—I am like an engine in an automobile. You put the key in, turn the key, and it goes, “Uh, uh, uh.” Nothing happens.
Yesterday, Ernie Highland and his wife and I went for a trip down to Richmond. When he turned his key, it went like that. He said, “It is because it is too hot.”
Well, whether it is too hot or too cold, sometimes it is difficult really to get our spirits exercised. I do thank the Lord for giving me the gift of tongues, because I have experienced that through that little gift—which is mostly for personal use—I can edify my spirit and exercise my spirit.
Through that, I can come into a position where I can be in contact with the Lord, even for prayer. If you have not got that gift, the Lord may have given you something else. Some people get an overflow of joy when they are filled with the Spirit. Well, use it. Some get an overflow of peace. Well, use it.
So that our spirits get exercised, we come into the presence of the Lord, we are able to have contact with Him, and we are ready for prayer and spiritual warfare. It is a simple thing, but it is very important for us to practice this in our lives.
I see the way I experience the things that Paul is speaking of here in 1 Corinthians 14:14-15:
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also:
I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
Paul is not against speaking in tongues or singing with our spirit. What he is teaching on here is how we ought to behave when we are in the church. But he is not against speaking in tongues or singing with our spirits.
I do see something here that has become alive to me. Whenever I feel that my mind is unfruitful, I cannot find the words when I want to pray. I cannot find the mind of the Lord or the will of the Lord.
But when I begin to pray with my spirit, this kind of initiates prayer with my mind. It sort of leads me into the presence of the Lord, where the Lord can touch my mind, open my mind, give me the subject I ought to pray for, and lead me on.
So it is essential that we really learn to worship and praise the Lord with whatever He has given us.
But we have a problem, I imagine, and I know we have a problem: what are we going to present to the Lord? What are we going to say to the Lord? How do we really worship the Lord? What can we bring Him?
We used to say that we come empty-handed. We have not got a thing to give Him, have we? No, we have not—not in ourselves, at least. But nevertheless, the Lord has ordered us to come before His presence not empty-handed. Come with joyful singing; come with thanksgiving; enter in with praise.
Even so, Moses was ordered by the Lord to tell the people of Israel how they should come before His face. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 16, verse 16:
Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty.
They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. But what can we come with? We are all empty-handed people. We have nothing to bring to the Lord. Please understand that the Lord is not interested in anything that we have.
There was a church member once who wrote to Dr. Tozer to complain, or to ask the question, “Why cannot I really get into this business of praying and getting an answer to my prayer? I have been praying to the Lord about a certain matter, and it is as if He is not even listening to me.”
Then this man went on in his letter to Dr. Tozer: “I have been an elder for almost thirty years. I have been the head of the Sunday school for all these years. I go to the meetings regularly, and I love my wife and my children.”
Then Dr. Tozer answered back in a letter, saying, “Well, it is very clear to me why you cannot really get into contact with the Lord in this matter: because you base it all upon your own works.”
That does not make any impression upon the Lord. Do not come with all that you have, or all that you have done, and say, “Lord, You know that the last two weeks have been really fine. I have been able to pray and study the Word, and I have been nice to my wife and not gotten irritated as I used to. How about that, Lord? Now give me the things that I am praying for.”
The Lord will not listen. He is not impressed. We are empty-handed people. We have got nothing. Even if you have got something, it is nothing in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring it.
It is like the difference between Cain and Abel. Cain came with the fruits of his works, the fruits of the soil that he had cultivated. The Lord was not pleased about it. But Abel came in another way. He took a lamb and slaughtered the lamb. The blood was there, and the Lord was listening. He paid attention to the worship of Abel.
Now let us see how the Lord directed Moses to speak to the people of Israel concerning how they ought to come into the presence of the Lord. For them there were three times in the year, but for us it is every day. Thank God, we do not have to wait for a special occasion where we can appear before the Lord and be in His presence. We can be there always. That is great.
Now, it says in Deuteronomy 16:17:
Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which He hath given thee.
Oh, that is wonderful, is it not? What are we coming with? What are our hands filled with when we go into the presence of the Lord? With all the things He has given us through the Lord Jesus Christ—that wonderful Lamb of God that was slain.
Worship is to return all of that to the Father. What He wants to hear is not how good we have been, how nicely we have done, and how things are going all right, and so on and so forth. What He wants to hear is how precious His Son is to us.
How wonderful the Lord Jesus Christ is to us—all the things He means to us, all the things He has done for us. This makes it possible for us to worship always. There is never a minute or a day when you cannot worship the Lord. He gave you the reason to worship, and He even gave you hands filled with His blessings so that you can appear before Him.
If you come like that, giving praise to the Father because of His Son, you will find that the gates open up. When the Father listens to all that we have to say about His Son, His heart is touched. Oh, He wants to take us into His presence immediately. We have contact with Him, and then we can really start the work of prayer.
If you go to Hebrews 13, he speaks about offering sacrifices of praise. Hebrews 13:12-15:
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.
For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come.
Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His name.
Through Him, let us always, continually, offer up a sacrifice of praise. Now the secret is the words through Him. As we come through the Son of God, as we come into the presence of the Father with His wonderful name upon our lips—
—telling the Father of all the blessings that the Son has given us, telling Him about the precious blood, about that agony, about that wonderful resurrection, about that wonderful salvation that He imparted into our lives—then we will find that the gates will yield, and we can go right into the presence of God the Father. Then we are ready for prayer.
So this is the secret of prayer and praise: we must learn to worship, and we can worship Him, all of us. It is no problem. It is not a matter of emotions or getting in the mood for worship. It is a matter of coming in the right manner and coming with whatever He has given us.
It is such a wonderful thing that we do not have to come with our own lives or our own works, but we have something much better. You can worship the Lord anytime, brother. You need not have any problem at all, because He is there—that wonderful Lord and Savior.
Everything He has given us, as soon as we take it to the Father, we will experience how the presence of the Lord is felt, and we are ready to pray.
Now, it is not only a matter of having some words to offer with our lips. You notice here what the Scripture said: “Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”
It is more than just uttering some words of thanksgiving and praise. It is that we go out to Him, that we leave anything else and everything else, and we go out to be with Him in His sacrifice for us. We live for the Lord.
There is a real meaning: we remember the Lord. We remember what He did for us. We remember the cross. We remember His death. We remember the blood. We remember His victory and resurrection. We are together with Him. We partake in His sufferings.
I think that the Father becomes spellbound whenever He is shown what His dear Son has done. In all eternity, we shall see the Lord Jesus as the Lamb that was newly slain. This is what touches the heart of the Father.
If we could learn that lesson—to come into His presence with thanksgiving and praise—we will see that we will be able to make contact very easily. Then we will be able to get down to the work of prayer.
But praise does something else for us besides bringing us into the presence of the Lord: it brings the presence of the Lord right into our situation. It not only gives us an entrance into the throne, but somehow it brings the throne down into our situation.
That is a marvelous thing, because wherever the throne is, the Lord reigns. Is that not true? Wherever the Lord is enthroned, He reigns, and His power is felt. No enemy can stand in the presence of the Lord; he has to flee.
Look up Psalm 22, the very familiar word that speaks of the meaning and power of praise. Psalm 22:1-3:
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Why art Thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou answerest not;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
But Thou art holy,
O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
I know this is the Messianic psalm, speaking about the Lord Jesus in a prophetic way, but it is also a psalm of David in his situation. To me, it has been very significant that the opening of this psalm really speaks of a man who has not got any contact at all.
He is cut off from the presence of God. He is left alone. He says, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but Thou dost not answer.” There is no contact. There is nobody at the other end of the line.
He is trying to make contact. I do not know whether David had really forgotten something here. Certainly he says, “Yet Thou art holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel.”
Maybe, pardon me for saying this—it is only an illustration—if he had opened up the psalm in another way, if he had begun to praise the Lord and worship the Lord, maybe he would not have had that difficulty making contact or that feeling of being cut off or left alone.
But you see, the Scripture says that He is enthroned upon the praises of Israel. So not only do we enter into the throne when we praise the Lord, but somehow the throne enters into us. The throne comes into our situation.
That really means that the power and reign of God come upon us, and His authority will be with us. That is something we need especially when we are to pray and exercise spiritual warfare: that the Lord has raised His throne in our midst.
If you go to Psalm 149, you see the combination of worship and prayer. Psalm 149:5-9:
Let the godly exult in glory:
Let them sing for joy upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand;
To execute vengeance upon the nations,
And punishments upon the peoples;
To bind their kings with chains,
And their nobles with fetters of iron;
To execute upon them the judgment written:
This honor have all His saints.
Praise ye the Lord.
He begins with, “Let them sing for joy upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth.” Then it goes on into spiritual warfare, into really prayer.
Prayer and spiritual warfare are to execute the authority, the vengeance, and the throne power of God upon the situations we are in. But it opens up with, “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand.”
I often feel that this is the only way that we can get hold of the two-edged sword, which is the word that the Lord will speak to us. Whenever we are in spiritual warfare and prayer, we need the Lord to speak to us. “Give us the word, Lord,” when we have to speak to the mountains or when we have to speak to the enemy.
If we have to execute God’s vengeance upon the enemy, we need Him to speak to us. The two-edged sword is the word that comes to us through the Holy Spirit in the situation that we are in. When we speak that word, the enemy is finished.
But how do we come into a position where we really can get hold of the two-edged sword? By waiting upon the Lord in praise and worship.
So we see that it is essential for us that we really give ourselves to praise the Lord and worship Him. You know how they fought the battle in the time of King Jehoshaphat.
He got that most extraordinary idea after waiting upon the Lord and seeking the face of the Lord. One of the prophets began to speak, and he got that strange idea to put the temple singers in front of the army.
As they walked out to meet this big army of enemies, there were the temple singers in front of them. They did not say, “Get behind me, Satan.” This was not what they said. “Oh, we come against you”—sometimes we have to say that—or, “We rebuke you in the name of the Lord.”
All they said was, “For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.” That was all they said. They sang it out: “For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.”
It is the most extraordinary warfare that has ever been. There they went, and before even some of the good soldiers behind could get their swords out, it was all over. The Lord took care of the enemy.
We have to enter into the battle with praise and worship. We have to learn to exalt and lift up the Lord, come into His presence, and enter His gates and His courts with thanksgiving and praise.
One final word from Psalm 8, verse 2:
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou established strength,
Because of Thine adversaries,
That Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
Now, this is a remarkable word. In the Swedish Bible, it says, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes, Thou hast established an army.” An army. I like that—an army.
Out of these infants that have no mind to war, that do not know how to make war—we do not know either. We do not know the enemy. He is not bigger than we are; he is much cleverer than we are. We cannot cope with him. We are no match for the enemy at all.
But it is wonderful that the Lord is taking these babes and these weak infants, and out of their mouths He is establishing an army that is able to defeat the enemy.
The Lord Jesus interprets this verse in Matthew 21, and He says, “Out of the mouth of babes Thou hast perfected praise.” Praise is the way that we ought to fight the battle.
This is the opening, the basic principle, I think, of spiritual warfare. We must learn to worship and praise the Lord. Then, when we come into His presence, we will be able to really get into the matter of prayer and warfare.
Let us thank the Lord together.
Father, we do thank You for providing all the blessings in Your precious Son, the Lord Jesus. We do thank You this morning that we are able indeed to worship You through Him.
Father, we do thank You that we are not cut off. We are not left alone. We are not without contact, but we can go into Your presence through that precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. You made it possible for us at any time to enter in.
How we do ask You, Father—we do ask You really—to teach us to come in the right manner. Teach us this procedure, Lord, that we remember that You are King of kings. You are Lord of lords. You are the holy God, the Almighty One.
Father, we so much would like to really know how to stay in Your presence, be before You, so that You can use us, Lord, as empty as we are in ourselves. We are just babes. We are just infants. We are nothing. We know it.
As it comes to the matter of prayer and spiritual warfare, we know, Lord, that we are inadequate in every way to do anything about it. Lord, we just want You to impress upon our hearts that You have provided for us in the Lord Jesus everything that we need, even in the matter of praise and worship.
Lord, we think that there are some amongst us who have not really found that release within their hearts of offering up a sacrifice of praise to You. Lord, touch us.
Lord, we want to be a people of praise, a people of worship, a people that honor our God. Teach us, Lord, and help us to enter into Your gates and enter Your presence with thanksgiving and with praise.
Lord, we thank You and praise You in Jesus’ name. Amen.