Praise Till We Worship in His Glory

Recently I was on my way to the Ministry of Interior to apply for Aliyah, after having been there a few times before. As I was going to transfer buses the Lord spoke to me saying “meet Me at the wall.” I said, “Lord can’t you talk to me here?” Considering He is omnipresent. "Why the wall?" I asked. All I heard was “less distractions.”

So I hopped on the bus going the opposite direction, and along the way He tells me to open one of the prayer books to page 76 when I get there. After I arrived there the first thing I thought of was that I wanted to go into the room at the back left corner of the wall.

Entering the room I could feel His ever strong presence as I had before. Yet I also noticed something, a lot of people standing right where I wanted to be. So I started to push my way to the back of the room when I stopped to see why all these men had gathered in a circle. Suddenly an older man grabs me and tells me in English to get closer as if he was wanting me to be a part of what was going on. That is when I realized that it was a bar-mitzvah, but not just one bar-mitzvah but three of them at the same time throughout the room. I watched for a minute or two, but knew that God called me there for a purpose and it was not to partake in a bar-mitzvah (so I thought).

I finally made my way over to the area where I had felt God the strongest before, but noticed that all of the prayer books were in use. So I started to pray waiting for one to become available. During my prayer I was not getting anything. Instead I was still trying to figure out what the difference was between being distracted at the bus station and being distracted by all of the bar-mitzvahs all about.

When one did come available I quickly grabbed it up, opened to the page God told me to and prayed the only prayer on that page. Nothing exciting except that it was a basic prayer of blessing, and I do not even remember over what. Then I happened to glance down towards the bottom of the page and read the following commentary:

“The sages taught that one should set forth the praises of God before making requests of Him.” Then they compared two Hebrew words d’zm’rah to the verb tizmor (prune) as found in Leviticus 25:4. They went on to say, “We are to recite verses of pruning which are designed to cut away the mental and spiritual hindrances for proper prayer. Thus by focusing on God’s glory all around us.”

Right away I thought of John 15:1-8 (NASB)

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

Larry Lea years ago did a study on the Lord's prayer which really launched his ministry internationally. He found that we need to open up with praises to Him (...Hallowed be thy name). Considering that the Lord's prayer has six parts to it, he mentioned that we need to praise him for ten minutes. This was how he was getting his church and people around the world to pray for one hour.

I looked up the root meaning for prune and it means to pluck. As if plucking an instrument or fruit off of a tree. If we abide in Him (Yeshua), and we allow Him to prune us then we will bear much fruit. I have to agree with the sages that pruning (praising) is a cutting away of the flesh and the spiritual hindrances in our daily lives. The other thing to keep in mind is that Yeshua gave us ALL authority as well. That means that we too can take authority over the bugs (spiritual) that attack our flesh and Spirit man.

Ruth Ward Heflin stated in her book Glory that not only do we need to praise Him, but we also need to worship Him then the glory will fall.  Worship is a form of pruning.

Worship helps us to get rid of a lot of life’s spiritual and natural frustrations. Through worship God brings to us a wholeness of body, mind and spirit. God is refining our understanding of true worship. True worship comes from the heart, in love and adoration unto the Lord. [W]e praise until the worship comes, so, if we want the glory, we worship until the glory comes. When you praise, worship comes, and if you want a great depth of worship, then you must have a great height of praise which enables you to ascend to the top of the hill. - pp 80,86.

My wife and I learned this simple process back in the mid 90's and have applied it in our own lives numerous times finding it to be very true. As a result, we have seen healings, angels in our meetings, people getting set free from oppressions, true worship....

Now please know that I do not normally agree with the rabbis or the sages (rabbis that were teachers of the oral Torah known throughout history – e.g. Hillel, Akiva or Gamaliel found in Acts 5:34), but once in a great while they actually get it right. Not only do I believe that this one of those times, but I will step out on a limb to even say that I feel sometimes that they get actual revelation(s) from God. A lot of the sages that wrote these commentaries in the Mishnah (writings of the oral Torah) were after Yeshua’s time.

Is is just possible that they may have understood the principles of what Ruth Ward Heflin realized centuries later? After all according to what they said, we need to praise first then focus on verses concerning pruning, or should I say verses concerning worshiping Him.  Think of the Psalms.

If you are a worshiper or a worship leader, then apply these simple Jewish principles and watch God move. He will not let you down. Based on personal experience I can promise you that.

To finish my story about the bar-mtizvah, I watched it until the very end and was a little saddened because they all walked away quietly without singing and rejoicing like they had done earlier.  Yet, I still felt that they had praised and worshiped God in their own way.

Until next time... Shalom!