It's About Knowing Him

1996

Do you see the connection between all that we’ve talked about tonight, and something as classically simple as “praise and worship” in the church? What do you have to say to Him for 10,000 years?! What do you have to say to Him? Do you think He’s interested in you humming some song that you learned down there on that ball of mud? He doesn’t care about that! He wants you to admire Him for real things that He has done in your life that you had eyes to see and that you were grateful for, and from the heart you threw yourself at Him. Things that you admire, things that you appreciate, things that have happened in your life. Things that you were able to hear, able to see, the things that He has done in your life that are real. There’s no power in “praise and worship,” just singing songs to Him. If you’re not plugging in to what’s really happening, if you’re not hearing His voice and if it isn’t touching your life and you’re not admiring Him for the things that He’s done…”I can’t help but admire when I see your dealings with me.” Now that’s praise and worship.

“I see how You did that. That was very creative, God. You got through in a way I couldn’t even in a million years have grabbed ahold of that thing and found a way to apply that in my life and yet You did that for me. I admire You. I see Your wisdom and I bless You for that, I love You for that.” It’s real stuff! It isn’t some magic formula, some lucky rabbit’s foot. All of this has to do with the life of being able to hear Him and to respond to Him, to be trained by Him, to walk in His presence. To stay in the shadow of the Almighty and to feel His love and experience His goodness and to taste His generosity and the powers of the coming age. That’s what all this is about.

Let’s get all this compartmentalized religion out of our minds. It’s about knowing Him, and all the rest of that just falls right into place. If you know Him, you can’t think so highly of yourself that you don’t fall before Him and cry out to Him in the midst of the difficulty instead of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or relying on your own intellect or accomplishments and running your mouth or doing your stuff.

It’s about knowing Him and there is no other way to be holy. There is no other way to “share Jesus,” “evangelize.” There is no other way to praise. There’s no other way to do any of this stuff with any kind of reality, any kind of continuity without being filled with hypocrisy, discrepancies and inconsistencies unless you just know Him. You’ve got to hear His voice to do that. That’s the New Covenant, is we can hear His voice. He puts His heart in us, and we’re taking the time to listen. Today if you hear His voice, if you hear His heart, if you see His mind, if you can picture His face, you can see Him smile, you can see a tear in His eye, harden not your heart.