Daily Devotional

Embedded in the western wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the world’s largest cut stones.  It is 44 feet long, 10 feet high, 16 feet deep, and weighs 570 tons.  The stone is so massive that engineers don’t know how it was moved without the help of modern machinery.  And yet this is just one stone among thousands in the retaining wall that supported the Second Temple, renovated by Herod between 20 BC and AD 63.

To enter the temple courts, worshipers had to ascend through one of the gates in the retaining wall that led up to the temple mount, and those gates were 32 feet high and 16 feet wide.  You can imagine the sense of awe and wonder people felt as they passed through those magnificent arches to worship God.

Psalm 100 alludes to this when it declares: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!”

When I read this passage recently, it struck me how we ought to enter God’s presence.  True worship is composed of many elements, including reverential fear, humility, and tender-hearted repentance.  But the initial elements are thanksgiving and praise.  Before we approach the sacred Temple… before we reach the bronze altar on which the Lamb of God was slain for the sin of the world… before we drop our widow’s mite into the coffers of the King… we ought to praise him.  It’s as if the very gates through which we pass into his presence are thanksgiving and praise.

Have you ever stopped to think about the difference between those two facets of worship?  Thanksgiving focuses on what God does.  Praise focuses on who God is.  Both are essential elements of worship, and they are preparatory to the other elements.  

We ought to enter God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise for the simple reason that he deserves it.  He should be the glorious focus of all our prayers, not ourselves, or our problems, or our needs or wants.  When Jesus taught us to pray, he began by declaring: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9).  And that is where we should begin.  

Today I encourage you to stop and enter God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise.  Come up with a list of the marvelous things God has done for you, and thank him.  Then come up with a list of God’s attributes that amaze you, and praise him.  

Let’s be the kind of worshipers who enter God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise.

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"New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved."