[הלל] Celebrate Jesus!

In my first blog entry, I discussed one Hebrew definition of "praise", but I deliberately held off another one until now. This one is more well-known: halal, more often recognized in the form Hallelu Yah.

To be honest, when I looked up this word, it confused me. Some things didn't add up. It is translated "foolish" and "fool" in some places in the Bible (Psalm 5:5; 73:3; 75:4 Job 12:17). Weird!!! How can this word ever be translated "praise"?

But, I looked through, and found other translations for this word: to shine, to boast, to glory, to make a fool of oneself (Brown-Driver-Brigg's Hebrew Definitions), to celebrate, to rave, to be mad (Strong's).

In my head, a strange compilation of concepts. But... as I looked more closely, I saw something. This praise is different than yahad. This is the praise that has to do with music, instruments, dance (Psalm 150). This is the praise of celebration. The expression of a joy so deep, so all-encompassing...

That we make a fool of ourselves.

I remembered instantly the dance of David. He "danced before the LORD with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). He danced so hard that Michal called it "vulgar" (vs 20, NIV).

That was halal. Halal is that place where all you can think is, How great! How great! How GREAT is our God! That place you reach when you don't care what the people around you think; you just want to dance, to sing, to play the strings, the percussion, to shine the grace of God. To celebrate His goodness, the victory over death and sin.

Halal is outward praise. It is dancin with and for God. It is celebrating Jesus with all your might!

Praise Him
Praise Him
Praise Him

~Ken

At the Cross: The Gift of Worship

This is a simply beautiful video found on tangle.com (formerly GodTube). It explores the question: What is worship really about?

Watch, be convicted. And fall to your knees before the cross.

~Ken

The Fire: A Message to the Lukewarm

A friend of mine sent me this video and I was blown away. Nate speaks with a passion you can't ignore. We would disagree on certain points since I do not believe that hellfire is burning now, or that the fire will be ever-buring, but still it is a very good message, and I pray that those who listen are ungulfed by the Spirit's enlivening fire!

~Ken

Vain Repetition

One day, I showed a friend one of my favourite worship songs, Michael W. Smith's Let it Rain. My friend's reaction surprised me. The words used were: "mindless repitition"... "God must be bored." That wit is kinda funny in retrospect, but at the time, I was a bit upset. I definitely didn't react the way I should have, but... The good thing about this is that it propelled me to look deeper into God's word for the answer.

In case you don't know the song, it has only three lines:

Let it rain
Let it rain
Open the floodgates of heaven

On a 2001 album (I think it's called "Worship), Smith has a 5:42 minute track with just these words over and over (along with a short section of praise-talk). I have loved the song for a long while.

The idea is that the repitition is mindless, and goes against what Jesus said in Matthew 6.

But... I don't think so. Jesus made a point of not being like the hypocrites, who repeat in prayer so as to make them long and be seen by others (Matthew 6:5). So, motive is what Jesus was speaking about. It is possible to say "I love You" to God ten times and mean it each time. But if we're doing it just to be seen as righteous by others (and God), then we're doing it for the wrong reason.

Another song by Smith, Agnus Dei (also repetitive), was inspired, I believe, by Revelation 4 and 5. John, in vision, saw the four 'living creatures' around the Lord's throne. He wrote: "Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.' " (Revelation 4:8, NIV)

Maybe you or I would be bored (and maybe the creatures are, too lol) but I don't think God is. Even if this is purely symbolic, it's clear that God is not against repitition inself (or He would not have given John this vision of angelic praise), and so that is not what Jesus was speaking against.

Reading through the Bible, I'm struck by the diversity of praise. "Clap your hands, all you nations" (Psalm 47:1), "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10), "Shout for joy to the Lord" (Psalm 98:4), "Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker (Psalm 95:4)...

Is it right or wrong to do these things? One person may be fine to "be still" in awe of the mere greatness of our God. But someone else has a deep desire to shout to the Lord. I don't think it should be anyone's prerogative to try to smother someone else's praise just because it's not what we're used to, or want.

And believe me, that's a lesson I'm having to learn myself.

So, I don't believe there's anything wrong with repitition. God sees the heart. And He knows the hypocrites... and the sincere.

~Ken

Guitar: "Holy Spirit Rain Down"

I found this song on Shout to the Lord: The Platinum Collection. I love it and as I learnt guitar, I thought it would go well with Michael W. Smith's "Let it Rain", which I already know in C. But I couldn't find it in C. So, (with a friend's help!) I put in C!!!

So, how this song works in my head is to fingerpick the following during the first 2 lines and then fairly slow single strums for reach of the chords until we get to the second “Holy Spirit rain down”, when we do some mellow strumming, with the song building as you go along. The fingerpick has a very lovely sound that I think sounds well with the gently sung petition that God rain down His Presence. And as the outpour swells, so does the song, as the verses are repeated and it goes into the bridge. My idea is, after singing this song for the desired number of times, to go from the bridge into "Let it Rain". It's very easy to go from "Let it Rain" back into the bridge, too. Hope this is easy to understand. It's great for personal or communal worship.

  rain...            down.            
e|---------0-------|---------0-------|
b|-----1-------1---|-----1-------1---|
g|---2---2---2---2-|---2---2---2---2-|
D|-2---------------|-2---------------|
A|-----------------|-----------------|
E|-----------------|-----------------|

 Rain               down
e|---------0-------|---------0-------|
b|-----1-------1---|-----1-------1---|
g|---2---2---2---2-|---2---2---2---2-|
D|-3---------------|-3---------------|
A|-----------------|-----------------|
E|-----------------|-----------------|

            Am   C
Holy Spirit rain down
G    Dm
Rain down
     C             F
Oh, Comforter and Friend
       C                G
How we need Your touch again
            Am   C
Holy Spirit rain down
G    Dm
Rain down
         C
Let Your power fall
         Am
Let Your voice be heard
         C
Come and change our hearts
      G
As we stand on Your word
     Am Em       C
Holy Spirit rain down


Am               F
No eye has seen, No ear has heard
C                G
No mind can know what God has in store
Am                 F
So open up heaven, open it wide
C                    G
Over Your church and over our lives

"Holy Spirit Rain Down" is is © 1997 Russel Fragar/Hillsong Publishing
This arrangement (chords, etc) is mine, not the lyrics or melody.

If you don't know the song, you can listen to it here:

Be blessed,

~Ken

Praise and Worship

So! My first blog. My first post.

I decided to make this first post be about a topic that is dear to me: worship, praise; what do they mean? I could just go to an English dictionary and just paste the definition and that'd be that. But I think it might be just a bit more meaningful (to me anyway) to go what it means in my Biblical heritage. To keep it simple, we'll just go into these two Hebrew words.

'Worship' (Hebrew shachah) means: "to depress, that is, prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God)". [Strong's]

I like that. Worship means I know You're great, awesome, more than I can believe. The weight of Your glory, Your being, brings me to my knees. The core of worship is humbly accepting who you are before the Almighty. 

And then, there's 'praise'. In Hebrew, the word (yadah) has its root in another Hebrew word (yod) that means 'hand'. It's a very interesting word. It literally means "to (that is to hold out) use the hand". It can mean 'to throw', but specifically to this context, it means "to revere or worship (with extended hands)". [Strong's]

Praise is reaching. To be honest, I was surprised to find that the word for praise had this meaning. When I lift hands in prayer, it's out of the idea that my God is so wonderful, I just want to reach out to Him, lift Him high. Lifting hands became almost a metonymy in Biblical Hebrew for petition to God (Lamentations 2:19). Praise says I need You.

It is with that foundation that I start this blog. Exploring worship and praise.

In the name of Jesus my Messiah, I pray lives are blessed and that by this project people (myself included) are drawn closer to the Eternal Father.
Amen.

~Ken