Key 13 - Praise and Worship

• As often as we pray and meditate, we should be praising and worshiping.  In fact, praise and worship should be a part of our prayers.  We should sandwich our prayers with praise and worship, thanking and praising God before we ask Him for stuff, and thanking and praising God after we ask for stuff.  Doing this makes prayer even more effective.

• Casual praise and worship is as described above.  You listen to Kirk Franklin or Tamela Mann or Fred Hammond while working or driving in your car, and you sing along; that’s casual praise and worship.

• Engaging fully while Pastor Kevin is leading worship on Sunday morning, casting all other distractions from your mind and not caring two bits about what anyone else thinks of you, that’s an example of focused praise and worship.

• Both are good, but focused praise and worship moves God.  Again, moving God can lead to more power and authority in your life and even miracles.

• When you praise and worship in the midst of your hardships - this is the kind of praise and worship that you do when your desperate prayer isn’t answered - that is the highest praise.

• You need to praise Him and love Him all the more when you’re going through something bad, telling Him that even if you are never healed, even if you never receive that miracle, you are still going to love Him - and mean it!

• Some say that the highest praise is “Hallelujah!”, but I don’t think this is true.  The highest praise is whatever praise you give to God in spite of the fact that He hasn’t answered your need yet.

• When you praise the Lord in spite of your circumstances, you move God.

• And I assure you, even if you don’t get the thing you are praying for when you want it, by praising and worshiping Him in the midst of those hardships, He WILL bless you in SO many ways - and it will earn you more power and authority in your life in the future.

• And here’s another thing that it takes a truly mature Christian to fully accept.  This is why this is such an Advanced Key to Power.  A truly mature Christian accepts that their true blessings are yet to be received AFTER death.  No matter what Hell you go through here on Earth, and no matter what hardship you face, you WILL see ETERNAL rewards for EVERYthing you endure while still praising and worshiping and honoring Christ.  This is why the Early Church rejoiced when they suffered.  It was because they looked forward, beyond this life, to the eternal rewards they were going to receive.  The more we look to that eternal future, the stronger we will be to endure whatever hardships come our way in this life.

• Now here’s another thing to keep in mind with Praise and Worship.  It’s an offensive weapon.  There’s nothing that makes your enemy, the Devil, more mad than when you praise God in spite of your pain.  When you do as Job did, and you worship Him in spite of what is going on, it’s like you’re getting revenge on Satan.  You’re taking the battle into his territory.  He may come at you all the more, like he did Job - and again that takes serious maturity to know that you might tick the Devil off and get him to attack you more - but just like Job, you will definitely please God more than you could possibly ever know.  And what happened with Job?  He was blessed way more in the end than he was prior to his hardships.

• And, you know what?  You just might see a supernatural miracle when you Praise and Worship.  Example:  Paul and Silas.  Acts 16:16.  We don’t have time to read it, but basically these two men were locked up in prison.  They committed no crimes, and they could have been totally upset, frightened, and miserable.  Instead, they worshiped the Lord and an earthquake happened.  Do not underestimate the power of Praise and Worship, especially during those difficult times.