Praise to God, its meaning, scripture, and purpose.
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2:47)
Praising God according to the Bible is the way in which his greatness is manifested and exalted. The term “praise” contains different verbs such as: exalt, celebrate, adore, praise, and ponder to highlight the relevance of God in our lives.
For this reason, it is very important to praise his name at all times. However, we must sincerely praise and leave behind everything that worries us in this world.
Praises to God and its real purpose
The real and true purpose of praising God is to magnify his name with all our hearts and disposition. So the praises to God have as their center to recognize his majesty and everything he does for us when we need him most.
In this sense, the meaning of the praises to God is rooted in recognizing who he is and how he is, and one of the ways in which the character of the Lord is revealed is through his names since to get to know him, we must know the meaning of his various names, and in this way, we can praise him according to what they mean.
In the same way, it is important to consider the nature and will of God that is perfect and destined for each of his children. So to praise God, we must take into account the following aspects:
1. The origin of the name “Jehovah.”
To praise God in a correct way, we must know our Father and the origin of his name, since every time we name him, we will know his meaning, and we can find it when God gave Moses the revelation in the bush fiery, as expressed in his word:
Exodus 3:13-15 “Moses said to God, “If I go to the children of Israel and say, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name? ” So what will I answer? God replied to Moses: “I am who I am.” And he added: -Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: “I am” “he sent me to you.” Furthermore, God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; with him, I will be remembered for all centuries.” (Exodus 3:13-15)
2. The various names attributed to God according to the Bible
To give our total adoration and praise to God it is important to know the sacred scriptures and know the various names attributed to him. According to the Bible, the name of God by Jehovah-tsidkenu means “Jehovah our righteousness.”
As revealed in the book of Jeremiah 23:5-6, “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as King, who will be happy and will act according to the right and justice in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely, and this will be his “Jehovah our righteousness.”
On the other hand, we find the combined name of God Jehovah-m’kaddesh, which means “the Lord who sanctifies.” This can be seen in the following biblical quote that is in Leviticus 20:8 “Keep my statutes and do them. I am Jehovah, who sanctifies you.”
Another of the combined names of God is Jehovah-shalom, which denotes: “The Lord is peace”, and in the Bible, we can find it in the book of Judges 6:24 “Gedeon built an altar there to the Lord and called it Jehovah-shalom. This altar remains to this day in Ofra of the Abiezrites.”
Similarly, there is the combined name, Jehovah-sama, whose meaning is: “God is here”, and can be seen in the book of Ezekiel 48:35 “The whole area will have 18,000 reeds. And from that day on the name of the city will be Jehovah-sama.”
We can also find in the bible the Jehovah-rophe combination that means “Jehovah heals,” and we can appreciate it in the book of Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed.
In this way, we can see that there are many combinations to name God, and each of them has a meaning and a purpose of being; for this reason, it is of great importance to have the knowledge to praise conscientiously what we are doing and thank him through adoration for everything, what he does for us every day.
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Meaning of the terms “praise” and “worship.”
The terms “praise” and “adoration” are used by many people in congregations, which turns out to be something positive, but when it comes to real biblical praise, where homage is paid to one true God.
However, we must recognize that those people dedicated to the praise and worship of God have seldom dedicated time to thoroughly study what the Bible teaches about these important actions.
According to the Bible, worshiping God means bowing down before Him. But the term “worship” as such does not appear within the sacred scriptures, not in the Reina-Valera version of 1960. This is really somewhat surprising to us, but the word “worship”, if we can find it about 150 times.
According to the Bible, worshiping God is a response of gratitude for his blessings, and this response must be with our whole being. There are three biblical examples of this:
- When Abraham went up to Mount Moriah to worship the Lord, offering his son Isaac as a burnt offering: “Then Abraham said to his servants, Wait here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go up there and worship, and we will return to you” ( Gen. 22:5)
- Micah saying “…do justice, love mercy, and humble yourself before your God” (Mic. 6:6-8)
- The worship of the apostle Paul: “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
What is the main purpose of praising God?
According to the Holy Scriptures, the main objective of praising God is to please God and give all the glory and honor to his name, the Great I Am. But true praise and adoration are not egocentric, but theocentric, since in the center we are not as an “I”; there is God.
In this sense, praising God is not about our tastes, but about what pleases the Lord. We can know this by fully understanding the meaning of true worship that the Holy Scriptures teach us since the message can often be misrepresented.
Therefore, we must make sure to practice a sound doctrine that is within the principles of Christ.
This is a challenge since many false sects today are breaking with that message of salvation that should truly be the center of all praise.
According to the Bible, singing and praising God are two things that are related but, at the same time, very different. For this reason, the lyrics of most hymns and songs present phrases such as great are your works!”, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord Almighty!”; “Your fidelity is great!”; “How big is the!”; “You are big!; among others.
In this sense, the praises of God have a biblical basis, and we can find them, especially in the book of psalms, where we can see psalms of lament, trust, thanksgiving, messianic psalms, and psalms crying out for help, among others.
One of the aspects that must be considered in the psalms is the fact that they express different circumstances, both good and bad, from anguish to fullness.
Therefore, there are two more important aspects than the songs, and that is the Word of God and prayer. And the times of praise turn out to be very important for everyone in general, since there we fully expose our personal feelings, letting out everything we have experienced and showing gratitude for his unconditional help in each of the situations of our lives.
Within the Old Testament, the music turns out to be very important, but even more so is the Word of God and prayer.
In fact, there are entire books that do not contain any remarks about music. There are not so many references to music in the four Gospels, and we can only find one reference to singing to the Lord.
How is the praise of God today?
According to the Bible, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ marked a pattern in the subject of worship, as can be seen in the following quote when the Lord spoke with the Samaritan woman telling her: “The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem you will worship the Father… The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father also seeks such worshipers to be worshiped…” (Jn. 4:21-24).
In this quote, the Lord tells us about a change in worship in anticipation of his second coming, where true worship must praise the Father in spirit and where the work of Jesus Christ is manifested.
Worship before Jesus Christ focused on his future coming to earth, and the worship after Christ focuses backward towards the representation of him, his death, and his resurrection. Therefore, the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ must be at the center of our praise and worship.
However, some believers speak of Christ, the Cross, and the gospel as if they had nothing to do with praise and worship. But in the book of Revelation, The worship of believers and angels in heaven is largely described, and it is also one of the books of the Bible that most mention Christ, where it begins and ends with the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, we can find about twenty-four names of Jesus, of which the name of the Lamb was the most used, where all the praise was based on his perfect sacrifice.
“And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and of the living creatures, and of the elders; and their number was millions upon millions, saying with a loud voice: The Lamb that was slain is worthy to take power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and praise” (Revelation 5:11- 12)
In this sense, praising God is worthless if there is no true worship in our lives. It is not easy to live the faith in daily life, as it is a challenge, but sometimes we change a lot when we are in our homes and we get carried away by the old man. Therefore, we must live in righteousness if we want to worship God from the heart.
Even the Lord had to rebuke his people Israel on different occasions for the inconsistency between their worship and their lives, as can be seen in the following biblical quote: “Wash and make yourselves clean; remove the iniquity of your works from before my eyes; stop doing evil” (Isa. 1:16).
On the other hand, the apostle Paul refers to our “rational worship” in relation to our lives, not what we do inside the church: “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies in living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your rational service. Be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:1-2).
In this sense and as explained by the Lord Jesus Christ to the Samaritan woman, the Father requires true worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth, since he created us for that purpose, so that we praise him from the heart, giving him all the glory that he deserves for having given us a life in abundance and fullness.
