Seeking to Worship God - Psalm 63:4

 

Psalm 63:4
I will bless You as long as I live
I will lift up my hands in
Your Name.

Psalm 104:33
I will sing to The LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
Psalm 146:2
I will praise The LORD all my life; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Psalm 143:6
I stretch out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for You like a parched land. Selah.
Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

    I lift up my hands to You. Yadah (pronounced: yaw-daw'). Worship that is never silent, nor immobile. Whether we "throw" our hands out in front of us, or "throw" our hands up in the air above us, or thrown over a sacrifice, our hands and our arms are in motion. 

    Granted, as our bodies age, it is much more difficult to exert our bodies in such a way, and yet, God gives strength to the weak. I can still raise my hands and my arms, just not for very long. I can still stand. I can still walk. Just not for very long, nor very far. Yet. 

    There are many action words which can describe how we move our hands and arms in His direction. We stretch out our hands in hopes of touching at least the hem of  His garment as He passes by. [Luke 8:43,44]. We reach up, extending our arms above us, stretching out fingers into the atmosphere, giving God everything we have within us. [Psalm 103:1].

    We lift our arms in front of us, our palms facing out, as if to press in towards His direction, if only to brush up against Him and hear what He has to say to us more clearly. [Mark 5:24]. We must remember, though, that while many surge around Him, not everyone will be seen or heard. It is the heart of the worshiper that God sees and hears and responds to. 

    Let us gather together amongst His congregations in His houses of prayer and lift up our hands to His Name. For Who He is. For what He's done for us. To bless His wonderful Name. To praise His Holy Name. To honor His mighty Name. 

A Sacrifice of Praise

Hebrews 16:15
"By (through) him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name."

Sacrifice: to surrender or give up some thing for the sake of something else; atonement, relinquish, offering, yield, surrender.

From Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:
2378 thysía – properly, an offering (sacrifice); an official sacrifice prescribed by God; hence an offering the Lord accepts because offered on His terms.

If what we are offering to God is not acceptable to God then God will not receive it. The offerings we bring to God must be according to God's Word in order for God to receive it into Himself. 

When Elijah challenged the prophets of Ba-al to build an altar to prove who the real God is, the fire of God fell on Elijah's altar which he had built according to God's instructions. Fire did not fall on the godless prophets' altar because there was no adequate sacrifice on their part. Fire does not fall on empty altars. 
We need to make sure our sacrifice is acceptable to God before we bring it to Him that He might receive it unto Himself. Our hearts need to be right with Him: Christ Jesus needs to be living there; the Holy Spirit needs to be there, guiding us through God's Word, bringing it to life, breathing it into our spirits and inscribing it onto our hearts.
When we bring to the altar that which God asks of us, then He will accept not only our sacrifice, but our praise, as well. 

Psalm 141:2
"May my prayer (intercession [prayers for others], supplication [petition humble prayer], hymn [song of praise to God's name and glory]) be set before You like incense [burning sacrifice, sweet aroma, fumigation], my uplifted hands (beacon, raising up, present, utterance) like the evening offering (donation, tribute, sacrificial offering)."

And, yes, it will be difficult at times to be obedient and faithful. 

But nowhere does it say that walking this walk

and talking this talk will be easy.

But it will be worth it.