I began Inscribe the Word Scripture Writing Plans in 2016, and every year, I am in awe of how God uses these plans to bring hundreds of thousands of people to Scripture. I am humbled and honored to bring this resource to you.

This year, our theme is The Spiritual Disciplines. By placing daily spiritual rhythms in our lives, my husband and I have decided to rebuild our lives around our apprenticeship to Jesus. You can read more about that HERE.

Each month in 2022, we will focus on a new spiritual discipline. I will also be including some books and resources to help you put that discipline into practice in your everyday lives. In January, we inscribed verses focused on Sabbath Rest. This February, our Scripture passages were on prayer. In March, we continued our study of the Spiritual Disciplines and studied Fasting. This month, we take on a new discipline . . .

Praise and Worship.

My prayer is that you see these not as legalistic rules but as ways to Abide in the Vine each and every day. (John 15:1-8)

This month, we will be walking through the Spiritual Discipline of Praise and Worship. Praise and Worship are near and dear to my heart. One of the most popular posts at A Symphony of Praise is The Power of Praise. You can read it HERE. In my darkest nights, praise and worship to our mighty God have gotten me through. In my mountain-top experiences, praise and worship to my King have brought even deeper joy. We were created to Praise and Worship our God, and I am so excited to travel through this spiritual discipline in Scripture.

Many people think that praise and worship are the same thing; they are interchangeable. But the Hebrew words for praise and worship are entirely different carrying different meanings.

I have often studied the words of Praise and Worship leader Judson Cornwall. His revelation on praise and worship is stunning. He has written dozens of books many on the topics of praise and worship.

In his book, Let Us Worship, Cornwall uses Psalm 95 to distinguish the difference between praise and worship. Psalm 95:1-2 says, "Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms."

Only after we have praised. After we have sang, joyfully shouted, come before His presence with thanksgiving and psalms, and offered praise the psalmist invites us to worship in verse 6. "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

"Praise," Cornwall writes, "prepares us for worship"; it is a "prelude to worship." Praise is not an attempt to get something from God; it is a ministry that we offer to God. We offer praise for what God has done— for God's mighty deeds in history and continued providential presence in our lives.

While we praise God for what he has done, we worship God for who he is. Praise begins by applauding God's power, but it often brings us close enough to God that worship can respond to God's presence.

While the energy of praise is toward what God does, the energy of worship is toward who God is. The first is concerned with God's performance, while the second is occupied with God's personage. The thrust of worship, therefore, is higher than the thrust of praise" (p. 146 of Let Us Worship).

Praise and Worship is not about your favorite song, your favorite praise band, or feeling a “holy high” in a service. While all of those things are fine, praise and worship is something deeper. In her book, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun says,

“True worship does not equal going to church on Sunday. This is not a particularly new thought. Jesus knew people could attend the synagogue while focusing on the closing of their business deal on Monday or the new house addition on Tuesday. He put it simply: “These people honor me with their lips, / but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). Worship can be offered in the power of the self rather than in response to the Spirit.
True worship of God happens when we put God first in our lives. When what God says matters more than what others say, and when loving God matters more than being loved . . . . . The heart of worship is to seek to know and love God in our own unique way. Each one of us fulfills some part of the divine image. Each one of us loves and glorifies God in a particular way that no one else can. It should not surprise us then that worship styles and tastes differ: traditional, contemporary, liturgical, folk, emerging. One style of worship is not better than another. The quality of worship emerges from the heart and its focus.”

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