Why Praise God?

Why do we praise God and how?  Does our motivation matter?  What is true adoration? In sorting through these questions, an apparent conflict arose.  There seemed to be two distinct answers to these questions:

1.  Our praise comes out of an understanding of God's interactions with us.  There are countless examples of this in scripture.  Here are a few:

Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. (Psalm 105:1)
LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. (Isaiah 25:1)
I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us— yes, the many good things he has done for Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses. (Isaiah 63:7)

And elsewhere when the people of God are commanded to remember and worship God, this God is identified as the God who acted - the God who brought them out of slavery, etc.  (For example, see the core teaching of the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6:1-25)

2.  Genuine praise does not depend on what God has done for us.  Albert Day writes,

We never really adore Him until we arrive at the moment when we worship him for what He is in Himself, apart from any consideration of the impact of His Divine Selfhood upon our desires and our welfare.  Then we love Him for himself alone.

This seems a good caution, for is there not danger of self-worship confused or mingled with God-worship, when we focus on what he has done for us?  Yet at the same time, how can we ever separate our understanding of God from his direct action in our lives?  We cannot worship an abstract idea.

Resolution
This morning matters became more clear to me as I read from Isaiah 43:

"You are my witnesses," declares the Lord,
"and my servants whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. [...]
I have revealed and saved and proclaimed [...] (v10,12)

God has made us his witnesses - this brings him glory.  The two thoughts unite: we understand who God is because he has revealed it through what he has done for us, and we praise him not because of his acts necessarily, but because of who he has revealed himself to be through them.

bar code faith vs. transformation

My heart breaks for the church in this country.  This is Christ's bride, which he loves so much that he "gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5:25-27)  Surely Christ has not abandoned his church.  But are we falling short of receiving the life he wants to give?

I constantly struggle to understand the relationship between grace a transformation.  I'm re-reading The Divine Conspiracy by Willard, in which he also points out this struggle.  In chapter 2, he challenges what he calls the "bar code" mentality of being a Christian: we have faith or say something, "God "scans" it, and forgiveness floods forth ... We are, accordingly, "saved."  Our guilt is erased.  How could we not be Christians?"(37)  There is some truth to this idea: "it is not necessary to be a good  Christian in order to be forgiven"(37)  And yet - could it be that in focusing only on this part of what Christ has done that we miss the point?  Willard writes,

The real question, I think, is whether God would establish a bar code type of arrangement at all. [...We are] in danger of missing the fullness of life offered to us.  Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched?  [...]  Can we believe that the essence of Christian faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after?  Can we believe that being saved really has nothing whatever to do with the kinds of persons we are?   

And for those of us who think the Bible is a reliable or even significant guide to God's view of human life, can we validly interpret its portrayal of faith in Christ as one concerned only with the management of sin, whether in the form of our personal debt or in the form of societal evils? (38)

When I look around at my friends struggling to realistically put on the 'new self', the new life in Christ, when I hear sermons or talk to people about faith, sometimes I wonder if we really do believe these things.  How do we respond to Paul, for example in Colossians:

"you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (3:10)

Yes, Christ's grace is amazingly free and his salvation to us unconditional.  But talk to anyone who has tried following Christ for a while and they will tell you that receiving this salvation and learning to live in the new kind of life he offers takes time, perseverance, and constant surrender - all things that aren't necessarily easy.  Ironically, it seems that it is not always easy to take on the easy yoke.

I am challenged by this.  I think we must be very careful not to pretend that as soon as we accept Christ and turn to follow him, our lives become good and we become better people.  (We all know this isn't true, but sometimes we accidentally say what we don't really believe.)  In fact, I don't think even the understanding of Christ's righteousness covering us will bear fruit all on its own in our lives.  (Unless, perhaps, it is the understanding with which we really have difficulty).  As I discussed in my last point - spirituality isn't all a mental or abstract thing, it concerns our bodies and our actions.

As a young adult, I am always searching to find older Christians who can teach me what they have learned.  I do know many my own age who are actively seeking God's kingdom, yet sometimes it feels like we are 'the blind leading the blind'.  I am grateful to God for all the ways in which he has provided in this respect, but I long to see training and discipleship grow in his church.

Sorry for the length of this post.  If you have read to the end, some of these things probably matter to you as well.  What has God been teaching you about all of this?