The Purpose of Prayerful Praise

Praying God’s Word endows our songs with the power of salvation. Music powered by God’s Word unites in the Household of Prayer to create pleasing, purposeful, praise. God’s purpose is that our lives will become the lyrics Christ uses to seek and save the lost.

3 Purposes of Prayerful Praise

1. Prayer helps praise through our pain.

Psalm 22:3 begins, “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” But by the time we get to third verse David exclaims, “But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel.”

2. Prayer gives us God’s perspective.

We see the people who need salvation through the Savior’s eyes. Without prayer, our songs lack proper perspective.

3. Prayer gives us God’s power.

We must unite our praise and prayer in order to have power. We need power in our praise to attract people to Jesus Christ.

We should sing our praise in a posture of prayer. Prayer and praise are both public and private; personal and congregational. For example, if you are an avid sports fan, you probably watch most of the games at home. You know all the players, all the stats, and every game won or lost. Then when you have the opportunity to go to the arena this is not your first time experiencing the excitement and the thrill of victory or defeat. You’ve been a fan of your team at home. So your public exuberance is just an expression of your private devotion.

We experience something very similar with prayer and praise. Your public expression of praise should be an overflow of your private experience in prayer and praise to God. You should come into the sanctuary already filled up with praise not needing to fill up. We should pray and study God’s Word as the core of our worship. No matter the circumstance, triumph or tragedy, we make intimacy with God through prayer the centerpiece of our praise. When we unite prayer with praise the house of God will be blessed.