The Purpose of Praise & Worship

"Praise and worship is our John the Baptist. He's supposed to prepare the way for the Word. And any praise and worship that does not prepare the way for the Word, it's not worship. I don't care how awesome the singing and playing is. I don't care how professionally it's done, how well it's sung and played. It doesn't prepare the way for the Word. It's not worship. It's entertainment. Right. Secret. I'll tell you a secret. That's not the last time you or anybody else is going to hear that. And it's easy. I have the Holy Ghost and God has granted me grace to be sensitive to the Spirit. But you don't have to be greatly sensitive to the Spirit to know whether or not what's taking place is a performance or if it's worship. All I have to do is sit there and watch. And if you're all staring at the singers and you're not participating with them, it's performance. If it's worship, you're participating with them, not some of the time, not most of the time, 100% of the time.

If the purpose of singing and playing is to lead us into the presence of God, come into his presence with singing, into his course with praise, if that's not taking place, then it's not worship or praise, it is performance. Because if it's of God, and anointed of god people are being led into his presence and the first people that will respond to those with the holy ghost that are prayed up walking with god they're going to feel that initial moving of the spirit with that you may not be able to see it but you'll know it's there and then they'll begin to respond to that i'm not talking about necessarily jumping up and down running around but they will begin to enter into that worship, that praise. Why is that important? Some of us that have the Holy Ghost have taught ourselves to not respond. Nobody going to manipulate me? Okay. What do you think the rapture is going to be? It's going to be a move of God's spirit. And if you have taught yourself to not respond, you're not going. Because you know what? It doesn't matter what anybody else is doing when praise and worship is going on. I want to always practice responding to God. And again, I'm not saying that response is necessarily getting up, jumping up and down, dancing all night, running around all over the place. But responding is an entering into that. Responding, it's responding to that. It's yielding to that. So every time the Spirit of the Lord moves, it's practice. Practice for the rapture. Every time.

So that's why if you don't come to church prayed up and you're sitting here with guilt and shame and condemnation and the Holy Ghost is moving and you're not responding, you're teaching yourself to not respond to the Holy Ghost. Why do we usually start with singing and praise? Because the Word says, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Singing. Singing brings us into the presence of God. Why? Because when we're all singing the same words, and if we get in tune with the Spirit, then we're coming together in unity. It's the first step of unity for that service. And for God to do what He wants to do in that service, there needs to be unity. So when we're all singing, that's the first step of unity. We're all singing the same song. That may not be in and of itself unity, but it's the first step of unity. Because in our singing, we enter into the presence of God. And it's preparation most of the time for your spirit to be able to receive the Word of God."