Christians in Action

Psalm 100:4 tells us to enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.  Be thankful to Him and bless His name.

And in the gospel of John 4:23, we see Jesus talking to the Samarian women and tells her “but the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Often the words thanksgiving, praise and worship relate to each other in our minds, and they do relate in how we relate to God, but studying the words in Hebrew and Greek gives us insight on the meaning of each word.

The word for thanksgiving in the Hebrew “tâdâ” means thanks offering or confession of thanks, personal gratitude.  Note: this is the only word in the Hebrew for thanksgiving.

Psalms 26:7, 50:14, 100:4 147:7

In Greek the word “eucharistia” means expression of thanks, gratitude, which is the only word translated for thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:7, 4:2, 1Timothy 4:3,4, Rev. 7:12

Thanksgiving implies something to be thankful for such as when someone does something for us or will do something for us. We often thank them before hand and afterwards. For example, we ask someone for a favor, and say thanks a lot and then if they do it we show our gratitude again. Does this sound like how we approach God most of the time? We need to always be grateful towards God for what He does for us and tells us to give thanks always. But it least personal relation we can have with God, because it’s focus is on us and what He does for us. Praise goes beyond thanksgiving.

Now in looking at the word praise, it has several meanings, but the most used are the Hebrew word “tˊhilla” which means praise, renown, glory, proclaiming the excellence of a person or object. The other word, hālal means to praise or give thanks, cheer, extol (to praise highly).

Deuteronomy 10:21, Psalms 28:7, 54:6, 33:1, 40:3, 79:13, 148:1, …..

In Greek the most used translation is the word “epainos (noun), epaineō (verb) meaning to commend or commendation (a formal expression of praise, or to mention with approbation (approval).

I Corinthians 11: 18, Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14, Philippians 1:11, 4:8,

We see that praise is giving God glory, not only for what He does but who He is. We praise Him whether He gives us what we want or not. It is He who is all knowing and omnipresent.  In Psalms the word praise is used hundreds of times throughout the book. God tells us that He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalms 22:3). When we exalt him and give Him glory His presence is clearly manifested.  We see this in church (but not often enough) when the people are caught up in praising Him.  His presence is clearly felt, and then worship begins.

Now the word worship in the Hebrew in the Old Testament is “sāhā” which means to bow down, or to weigh down, cause to bow.

Psalms 5:7, 22:27, 95:6, 99:5,9 Ezekiel 46:2,3,9

In the Greek the word for worship is “proskyneo” and means to pay homage, show reverence, to kneel down (before).

John 4:21-24, 12;20, 1Corinthians 14:25, Hebrews 1:6, Revelation 3:9,4:10, 13:8,12,15,…

This is so exciting because when we get in His manifested presence it causes us to bow down, the glory manifested weighs us down, because we see how great and powerful our Heavenly Father is and we can’t help but to worship Him.

We begin with thanksgiving- then move on to praise- and then enter into worship. This doesn’t need only to be at church but can be done in our alone prayer time with Him. In the presence of the King, we are forever changed.

Let us get beyond thanksgiving and move into praise of our King so we can enter into true worship.