We cannot worship until we have entered in through praise. Psalm 100:4a (KJV) says we “enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.” Praise erupts in the courts and brings us to the doorway. As we enter, our thanksgiving and praise lead us into worship.
We must never insult Him by praising Him halfway. If we return to Psalm 95:3–5, we see why we have to praise God with our whole hearts.
“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.”
I once traveled to Sinai, and I will never forget the experience of climbing Mount Sinai at night. Because there was no pollution, we could clearly see the Milky Way. At the sight of it we broke into spontaneous, exuberant praise like never before. Everything in us erupted, and we began shouting our praises with tears flowing down our cheeks. We realized God’s greatness because we saw the Milky Way. Isaiah 40:12 says God marked off the heavens with the span of His hand. God created the stars of the midnight sky. Scripture declares God counts the stars and gives them names. Oh, what a mighty God we serve!
Nature reveals His greatness to us, but only the Holy Spirit can reveal His holiness. When you see His holiness, your attitude toward Him and the way you interact with Him will completely change. You will fall on your face and worship the Lord. This depth of worship will transform your life.
Praise crucifies the flesh, and worship puts a new robe on us. As you dismantle the influence of your flesh through praise, it falls into submission to Him. Now as you dress yourself in the robe of worship, you invite God’s presence in a new way.
You can see how this process progresses. First, you destroy the weaknesses of your flesh with the praise; then you pick up the robe of worship and put it on. When you add the deeper level of worship to your praise, you elevate yourself into a closer encounter with the presence of God.
We see this shift from praise to worship in David’s call to worship.
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice” (Ps. 95:6–7).
He is our God. He is the only being worthy of worship. You may be permitted to praise a person, but you are not allowed to worship a person. You may only worship God. One reason is that whatever you worship will control you.
Many people worship other people, and they come under bondage. They are controlled by an individual they have thought of too highly. They placed that person on a pedestal, but soon everything came crashing down.
If we do not worship the Lord, then is He really our God? Is He really our Lord? Remember what the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 7, and I’m paraphrasing: “You call me Lord, but you don’t live it.” How does this happen to people? They stop living it because they stop worshipping Him as Lord. Worship is the key.
We worship because we are responding to His love, His care. Psalm 95:7b says, “We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” That shows that we are in His care, and we worship in response to receiving that care.
Amazingly the psalm doesn’t end here; it closes with a warning. Verses 8–11 say,
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
Worship brings us into faith, and faith brings us into rest. But what is His rest? Rest means no more striving. You do not have to work to achieve His rest; you just have to receive it. He has done it all, so enter in and rest. The Christian life is not all “do, do, do.” The Lord Jesus didn’t say, “Do” on the cross. He said, “Done.”
Now, this brings a decision before us: Do we worship or not? When we worship, we hear His voice. Upon hearing His voice, we obey and enter His rest. So, worship brings us into rest. Jeremiah talked about this too.
“But this thing commanded I them, saying, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you” (Jer. 7:23).
If it is well with you, you are in a place of blessings and rest. It’s not about prayer and fasting, begging and pleading, pounding the floor, and concluding that God is not listening to you. You are not trying to make it happen; it is happening by itself. Again, obedience follows worship. Worship produces obedience. Praise does not produce obedience; worship does. You see, the moment you move from praise into worship, you hear His voice. Once you obey His voice, there is rest.
Worship is vital. People who don’t worship are dry and dead. And when they try to minister, it is obvious there is no anointing there. You just want it to stop because it is powerless. But when true worshippers minister, the atmosphere becomes charged with dynamic power. The presence of God cannot be mistaken here. Everyone is glued to every single thing that these worshippers say and do because God is there with them. When praise turns to worship, everything changes. The climate shifts and lives are transformed. You can sense His presence best in an atmosphere of worship. {eoa}
Pastor Benny Hinn is known around the globe as a noted evangelist, teacher and the author of bestselling books, including Good Morning, Holy Spirit; Prayer That Gets Results; Blood in the Sand and Lamb of God. His television program, This Is Your Day, is among the world’s most-watched Christian programs, seen daily in 200 countries. His popular website and ministry app reach millions of people every single day in areas of the world that may not otherwise hear about the gospel. Through his ongoing multimedia outreach, Pastor Benny continues to take the message of God’s life-saving and miracle-working power around the globe, and to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
The preceding is excerpted from chapter 12 of Benny Hinn’s book, Mysteries of the Anointing (Charisma House, 2022). For more information or to order the book, please visit mycharismashop.com.
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Stephen Strang 
Charisma Media Staff 
CBN News 
