In Mark 10:45, Jesus said this of Himself: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.

In a world full of self-promotion, self-satisfaction, self-consumption, and even self-service, we are programmed to look to be served and not to serve. Yet, Jesus modeled deep, committed service every step of His ministry. As believers, we are to have hearts that love, care for, and serve each other, just as Jesus did.

Many believers are not following Jesus’ example and are looking out for themselves, when He desires us to be looking for Him to utilize us to serve one another and our local churches.

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4:10‬ in the New Living Translation tells us this: “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.”

Let’s surrender our lives wholly to God so that He can transform us into people who truly have the heart of Jesus to selflessly love and serve.

The subject of praising God is often very misunderstood. God does not want us to praise Him because He needs to be puffed up. Not at all.

Don’t misunderstand me.

When we praise and worship God, it blesses Him.

But praise is primarily for us.

Most of us have heard this before, but we lack the “aha” revelation of what it really means.

Psalm 22:3, in the New Living Translation says, “But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel”. Israel, in this Scripture, represents God's people. Enthroned in the Merriam Webster dictionary means, “to seat or put in a place to indicate authority or value”.

The King James Version uses the word inhabitest (in old English) or inhabits (as we would say in current English terms) instead of the word enthroned. The Merriam Webster defines inhabits like this, “to occupy as a place of settled residence or habitat: live in”.

Put those two definitions together and we end up with the understanding that when we praise God, we are humbling ourselves and placing the Lord in His rightful place of authority in our lives, welcoming Him and making room for His presence to occupy and take residence.

I had an “aha” revelation about this during prayer time on Sunday morning, when we played the song by Leeland called, “Inhabit”.

The lyrics say this:

“Our praise becomes Your house Your place...
We sing a song and You come in
Make a dance and You come in
Shout Your name and You come in
Give You praise and You come in…”.

An excitement rose within me that our praise is way more than just music with Biblical or edifying words. Our decision to praise is building a house where we take a position of humility and submission to our Lord and praise Him for how great He is, creating a place where God’s presence lives and moves continuously.