Communion with God

Thanksgiving, Praise & Worship - 6

A. Hindrances to praise

As children of God, our spirit wants to praise God.
We want to be totally free to praise and worship God, as God truely desires.
In fact, the Holy Spirit living in our spirit always urges us to obey God and praise Him "with our whole heart" (Psalm 111:1).
He is the Spriit of freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17), and He wants us to be set free to worship God.

Nevertheless, many of use feel bound in our spirit, our soul and body.
We do not have the total liberty to worship God as we should.
We are bound by many wrong acts, attitudes and thoughts that hinder us from praising God, and oftentimes we do not understand what these hindrances are.

Knowing the hindrances to praises in our lives wil help us to oversome the enemy of our soul, the devil, who desires us to stop praising God.
As we meditate on God's word, repent, and obey His commands, God's power wil manifest to set us free and to enable us to truely praise Him.

The major hindrances to praising God in our lives are:

• Lack of proper teaching on Praise,

• Sin.

• Self-condemnation

• A dependence on feelings

• Pride and lack of desire to submit to the will of God

• Fear of man

• Religious traditions

• Self-hatred

• Demonic oppression

1. Lack of proper teaching on praise and worship

Many believers do not have the liberty in the spirit to worship God because they have not received correct scriptural teaching concerning praise.
It is only as we receive and obey such teaching that we will be set free to praise God.
Jesus said that "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 18:31-32).

Thus all believers must meditate on God's word and know His will concerning the importance of praise in our life.

They need to know the following:
** Why must I praise God?
** Who is the God I am praising?
** Who is to praise God?
** When are we to praise God?
** Where can we praise God?
** What hinders us from praising God?

As we understand God's will concerning praise and know its importance in ourlife, we will be set free to praise our wonderful and loving God.
A lack of proper teaching will cause us to be bound by fears, traditions, sin and shame, self-condemnation, pride, and the devil.
Only God's word can set us free to truely praise Him.
We must therefore seriously take time to learn from God all that God has revealed in His word about praise, and put it into practice.

2. Sin

All wrongdoing is sin, and sin separates us from the presence and blessings of God.
In Isaiah 59:2, God declares that "your iniquites have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear."

In fact, the Holy Spirit living in you is grieved by your sin (Ephesians 4:30).
When you sin, the Holy Spirit will not give you the freedom to praise God.
Instead, the Holy spirit will convict you of your sin, urging you to repent and get right with God (John 16:8-9).

If we repent of our sins, "God is fiathful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
God not only forgives us, but He remembers our sins no more (Hebrew 8:12).
We are them set free right away by God to praise and worship Him.

If we do not repent of our ins, and yet attempt to praise God, our praise is not accepted by God.
We may deceive others, but we cannot deceive God (1 Samuel 16:7).
We are only deceiving ourselves and acting as hypocrites.

King David acknowledge that "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened" (Psalm 66:18).
Instead, we stand in danger of the judgement of God when we worship God with unrepented sin in our heart (Acts 5:1-10; 1 Corinthians 11:27-32).

3. Self-condemnation

Although they have asked God to forgive their sins, many believers still fiell condemned in their spirit.
This sense of self-condemnation is based on the lies of the devil.
This self-condemnation binds their spirit from praising God.

They will see themselves as unclean before God.
They will see themselves as being unworshy and unacceptable before God.
They will be inhibited from praising God.
However, God's word declares that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

This self-condemnation arises from three wrong attitudes:
(a) This first cause of self-condemnation is that after asking God to forgive them, many believers feel the need to ask God to forgive them for the same sin over and over again.
This happens when they are reminded of these past sins.
However, it is not God who reminded them of their past sins.
When God forgive us, He remembers our sins no more (Isaiah 43:25; Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12).

Such believers must realise that it is the devil who wants to remind us of the past sins that we have repented of.
He wants to bind us to our past so that we cannot worship or serve God.
Do not fall into his trap.
The next time the devil brings a thought of such past sins to your mind, rebuke him and command him to go (James 4:7).
Say: "Devil, I command you to go with your lies. God has already forgiven me of those sins, and He remembers them no more. In Jesus' name, be gone."

(b) The second cause of self-condemnation is that some believers feel that their sins are so evil that nothing, not even the blood of Jesus, can wash away their sins.
This again is a lie of the devil.
No matter how big our sins are, the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse us from ALL sin (1 John 1:9; Revelation 1:5).
Never think that your sins are so big that the blood of Jesus cannot wash them away.
If you think like that, you are despising the blood of Jesus.

(c) The third cause of self-condemnation is that many believers are not able to forgive themselves.
They feel that they must suffer the consequences of their sins for the rest of their earthly life in order to atone for their unforgiveable sins.
They blame themselves continuously for the wrong they have done to themselves or to others in the past.
This attitude is self-destructive and will suffocate our joy and praise life.

Such believers must realise that no one can ever atone for their sins, even for the little ones, mush less the big ones.
Jesus Christ has already paid the total price for all of our sins.
And God has forgiven us because of the work of Chrsit on the cross.
We must therefore forgive ourselves; we are not wiser than God.

They must also realise that regrets and self-pity can never change the past.
On the other hand, if they believe God and forgive themselves, and surrender their past to God, God promises that He will work out all things for our good. (Romans 8:28)

4. A dependence of feelings

Although praising God will involve our emotions, and we can become emotional during praise (e.g. weeping, laughing, shouting, etc), we must never depend on our emotions in order to praise God.
Praising God is an act of the will.
It is an act of obedience to the command of God to praise Him.

Because of that, weshould praise God no matter how we feel.
We should raise our hands, clap our hands, sing praises to God, and dance before Him, even if you do not "feel" like praising God.
God wants us to "live by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Never wait for the right feelings to come before you woship God.

Feeling are undependable.
Your praise life will be unstable and erratic if you depend on feelings to lead you into praise.
Worship and praise God first and them the "good feelings" will come.

5. Pride and last of desire to submit to the will of God

Many of us do not want to submit to the will of God concerning priase.
We think that we already know what priase should be, no matter what God said. We just want to do what we think is "dignifies" and "proper" in priase.
This last of submission to God's word is pride.
It is rebellion against the word of God.

Basically, such believers love themselves more than they love God.
However, they must realise that "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5).
And if they do not submit themselves to God in humility, God becomes their enemy and is no longer their friend.

6. The fear of man

When we fear the opinion of men more than we fear God's command, we will not want to obey God.
"The fear of man brings a snare" (Proverbs 29:25)
Fear of man will keep us from praising God.
It paralyses us, and keeps us from fully giving our best to Gd.

We do not want to embaras ourselves before others.
Fear of men manifest also as shyness; this shyness binds us from praising God.

Shy believers are afraid of losing their sense of dignity.
Such dignity is false and does not come from God; get rid of it.
We as children of God must please God always.
We should not be concerned about what others think.
If they are offended by our praise, that is their problem with God, not ours.

God wants us to worship Him with all our heart, as David did when he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:1-23).
When his own wife, Michal, despised his exuberant worship of God, David declared that he was not concerned about his dignity.
He cared only about worshipping God

As the Ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daoughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw Kind David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the salve girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would."

David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when He appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel - I will celebrate before the LORD.

I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these salve girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
(2 Samuel 6:16, 20-23)

7. Religious traditions

Many believers are bound by religious traditions that do not approve of exuberant worship and praise, although the Bible commands otherwise.
Jesus declared to the Pharisees and religious leaders of His day that their traditions nullify and make void the word of God  (Matthew 15:6).
They would honor their tradition rather than obey GOd.

Jesus replied, "And why do you break the commands of God for the sake of your tradition?"
(Matthew 15:3)

We must allow God's word to correct all our traditional attitudes.
Where our traditions are wrong, we must repent and get rid of them.
Instead, we must obey God's revelation, and be set free to truly praise Him.

8. Self-hatred

Many believers do not see themselves as God sees them in Christ:
** washed clean in the blood of Jesus (Revelation 1:5)
** accepted as God's precious children (Luke 15:11-24; 1 John 3:1)
** each a special and unique child in God's sight (Matthew 10:29-31)
** clothed in righteousness, without condemnation (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:1)
** holy before God, to be used mightily by God (Romans 8:30; Revelation 1:6)

Instead,  many believers continue to hate themselves.
Because of what others did to them or because of what others said to them in the past, they have developed a hatred towards themselves.
This wrong attitude is also transferred to the new creation life that God has given them in Christ.
This wrong attitude will strongly hinder them from knowing God's love and from praising God.

They must begin to forgive those who have hurt them in the past.
They must also repent of their wrong attitude towards themselves.
They must open their hearts to receive God's love for themselves.
As they know of God's love, they will begin to love themselves as God loves them.
They will then be able to love God in return in praise and worship.

9. Demonic oppression

Because of persistent sins or generational curses in a believer's live, a demonic stronghold can be present in such a believer (Ephesians 2:1-3; 54:27; Exodus 20:4-6)
The stronghold will hinder such a believer from praising God.

When such a situation occurs, the believer must repent of his sins or renounce the sns of his ancestors and break all the generational curses in his life (1 John 1:9; Galatians 3:13-14; Matthew 18:18).
He can than cast out the demons from his life in the name of Jesus and set himself free, or he can call on others to deliver him (James 4:7; Mark 16:17; Luke 10:19).
In this way he can be set free to praise and worship God.

PRAYER

Your thought

(a) Ask God to reveal to yourself the hindrances in your own life that have kept you from truly praising God as God desires in your life.
(b) List down the steps you would take to overcome these hindrances one by one. Put these steps into practice.
(c) Seek the help of other mature believers if you find it hard to get the victory in overcoming any hindrance.