It is humility that is the key to discovering God’s grace and mercy.  It is the full recognition that I am only worthy of death, not life, that causes me to bow before Him.  It is realizing that there is nothing I can do that will reconcile me to the God who created me to live, not die, except to present myself to Him in humility.  Only then do I discover the vast, unbounded ocean of the glory of God, His grace, and His mercy.

David knew God’s grace and mercy.  And David experienced forgiveness and healing.  He knew redemption.  And he would not forget the door that humility opened so that the gift could be offered.  It was a gift so unimaginable that David would respond with this Psalm.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not…

Father, help us to come before You in true humility.  And as we do, would You fill our hearts with praise and thanksgiving as we remember the amazing work that You have done in us through Your Mighty Love.  In the power of Your name, AMEN!

Dean Arvidson

The most serious question for every worship songwriter to ask is not, “Will this song be a CCLI #1?” or “Will a major recording artist cover this song on his latest worship record?” Rather, the most significant question to ask is, “What am I communicating about God through this song?” Notice the question is not, “Am I communicating about God?” That is because as worship songwriters our songs are always saying something about God. The only remaining issue is whether what they are saying is true.

One of my roles at New Life Church is the Director of New Life School of Worship. I teach a class at the school called “Understanding the Psalms.” Over the last few years I’ve been struck how over and over again the ancient songwriters praise God for things He had done. You see, like many other sincere worshippers, I had tried to stay away from praising God for what He does.

After all, is that selfish? Aren’t we supposed to rise above His blessings and worship Him for who He is? If you’re like me, you’ve tried sincerely to do it: to worship God for some ethereal reason completely unattached from his actions, but somehow failed miserably. You may have become severely discouraged and resigned yourself to a life of sub-Biblical worship, tainted by selfishness. Yet after pressing further in the worship we see in the Bible, it is difficult if even possible to find examples of individuals worshipping God without tying it to some act he has done.

The only songbook in the Scriptures, the Psalms, reveals worship that celebrates what He has done, looks forward to what He will do, or that pleads for Him to act again based on how He has acted in the past. A close study of the Psalms reveals that God’s actions are at the very heart of Biblical worship.

You see, God reveals who He is by what He does. It is impossible to know God apart from what He does. Christians-and Jews, for that matter-unlike any other religion in the world, worship a God who has chosen to be involved with human history, and moreover, a God who self-discloses by action. Our God is not a mere force or an unseen energy; he is not a vague ill-defined spirit. He is a person; one that can be observed and known; one who acts and speaks; and most significantly, one who has chosen to interact with humanity. All of God’s names speak of a Person who does something: Jehovah Jireh, the God Who Provides; Jehovah Rapha, the God Who Heals, and on and on.

There is no abstract worship in the Bible. God is not worshipped as an abstraction, but rather, for His action. The specific challenge to songwriters is whether our songs do the same. Do our songs paint a picture of a God revealed by His greatest act of all time: the cross and resurrection? There are enough touchy-feely, mystical worship songs. We need worship songs that show people who God is by reminding them of what He has done. That is our unwavering cause for celebration, our confidence in prayer, and our steady anchor of hope.

The song “Everyone” is my attempt to convey the blood and salvation as the inspiration of our praise. Sometimes we hit the goal and other times we miss. But whether or not we end up with good songs immediately, we need to keep on the path of Biblical songwriting: reveal God by reminding people of what He has done. It’s a song that never grows old.

Want to know more? Check out the Integrity Worship Institute’s
Psalms for Worship: Timesless Insights for Worship Leadership

Glenn Packiam, author of Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People (David C. Cook, 2011), is the Executive Pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO, where he oversees Spiritual Formation and serves as the teaching pastor for NewLifeSundayNight.

In this increasingly dark and perplexing world, I desperately need Light, not just to live by, but to live into my calling of being light to others.  But I quickly learn that I can not be light on my own.  I simply don’t have the ability.  And David knew that well.

So David tells me what is needed in addition to that Light.  The Lord must also become my Salvation. Only then can His Light indwell me and flow through me to others.  To be light, I need His salvation…and I need that salvo, that “washing” on a daily basis.

How does that happen?  David sings his answer.

The Lord must become the “stronghold of my life.”

Think about the very word stronghold.  Often we use it to describe other THINGS like lust, envy and hatred…things that have become strongholds over us.  But Psalmist David is turning that word around.  He is calling on the Lord to be his Stronghold.

The Lord is the Stronghold of my life.  Of whom shall I be afraid!

And that is the Key that unlocks our addictions, our penchants to follow the ways of the world and even our fears.  HE, Jesus, must become my stronghold…my Lord.

And with Him in that place…of whom shall I be afraid?

Lord Jesus, You are the Light of lights and the Savior of my soul.  Enter into my being and become the very Stronghold of my life.  In addition to being my Savior, reign over it all as the Mighty Lord.  Amen

Robert Brenner

About the author:
Robert Brenner is a pastor, teacher and VP at Integrity Music.  Earning his Bachelors from Washington and Lee University and his Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School, he pastored an inner city ministry for five years, managed a Christian bookstore and served as the Director of Membership for the Christian Booksellers Association in Colorado Springs. Robert also lead worship in his local churches during those seasons.  In 1990, the Brenners moved to Mobile to work for Integrity Music.  He is currently Integrity Music’s V P of Worship and Resource Marketing, oversees the marketing for the IWI Online School of Worship, provides content for IWI’s worship blog and worship community, and leads Intercessory Prayer for the company.

And what do we believe? That God is eternal. That He is the author, creator, and sustainer of everything. That He doesn’t tire or pause to even catch His breath. That those who wait upon Him will get fresh strength; that they will spread their wings and fly like eagles; that they will run without tiring.

Do we live as if we believe, or do we live as if myopic victims of the circumstances we’re in? Have we not heard?

My tendency is to keep the focus on me and to remain self-absorbed in so much of life. And this often leads me to live in self pity acting as a victim of life without hope. Self pity is very effective in crowding out belief. But when I dare to let belief invade my self-focus, there is suddenly little room for the shortsightedness that is questioned in this passage.

And if we believe, self-pity will melt away, and we will wait. We will trust God ruthlessly (without self-pity), and choose to live as the Psalmist, who declared:

God, the one and only – I’ll wait as long as He says. Everything I need comes from Him…everything I hope for comes from Him, so why not? He’s the solid rock beneath my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle: I’m set for life. (Psalm 62:1-2, The Message)

And our strength will be renewed. And we shall mount up with wings like eagles!

Robert Brenner

About the author:
Robert Brenner is a pastor, teacher and VP at Integrity Music.  Earning his Bachelors from Washington and Lee University and his Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School, he pastored an inner city ministry for five years, managed a Christian bookstore and served as the Director of Membership for the Christian Booksellers Association in Colorado Springs. Robert also lead worship in his local churches during those seasons.  In 1990, the Brenners moved to Mobile to work for Integrity Music.  He is currently Integrity Music’s V P of Worship and Resource Marketing, oversees the marketing for the IWI Online School of Worship, provides content for IWI’s worship blog and worship community, and leads Intercessory Prayer for the company.

The Psalms As A Model
So, if worship is “responding to all that God is with all that we are,” I think a review of some biblical models would be helpful. In Psalm 100, the writer expresses the “why” of worship. In articulating, “all that God is,” he points the reader to these undeniable realities – “He is God, he made us, we belong to Him, he is good all the time, his love endures forever and his faithfulness outlives us.” As a result, the Psalmist calls us to respond “with all that we are;” in other words, to respond in a manner commensurate to the truth we’ve discovered about God – “shout for joy, serve him with gladness, bring joy-filled songs, gratitude, and praise to him.”

Psalm 103 also recounts the “why” of worship. Here we are richly reminded that he alone “forgives all our sins, heals all our diseases, redeems us, crowns us, satisfies us, and delivers us.” “He alone shows compassion; he alone is slow to anger and abounding in love; and he alone chooses not to give us what our sins deserve.” So, “how” are we to respond to such a gracious God? – with everything we are! So, we call and exhort our minds (souls) and weary lives towards wholehearted devotion and we refuse to entertain forgetfulness or take for granted any of God’s benefits. The great benefits of God call us to respond to all that God is with all that we are.

Psalm 95, after exhorting the worshiper towards God, concludes with a warning and lesson for us all – ingratitude is not only poisonous to worship but also costly. Just ask that generation who grumbled against God and Moses in the desert and refused to be grateful for God’s miraculous goodness. Ask their children who grew up either watching their parents die in the desert or without parents at all. So costly was their ingratitude that Paul used them as an example to his Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 10). Ingratitude is costly! We who have tasted of the Lord’s goodness have a choice, but not much of one.

Biblical Responses
A cursory study of the Old Testament reveals a number of familiar ways we can respond to “all that God is.” However, I believe that these responses are descriptive, not prescriptive. They include the following ways of response to what we discover about God.

Hands: Clapping, lifted hands, financial giving
Voice: Singing, shouting, proclamation, verbal praise, boasting in God, thanksgiving, prayer
Body: Bowing, kneeling, dancing, stillness
Music: Instruments, spontaneous songs, antiphonal singing
Will: Confession of sin, self-examination, awe
Service: Witness, a personal commitment to God’s Mission

The New Testament continually exhorts the believer towards embodying an attitude of continual gratitude for God’s grace demonstrated in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Clearly, Paul believed that joy, prayer, and gratitude were essential components of God’s will for believers in his churches (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Phil. 4:4)

So, rather than discarding the Old Testament responses, the New Testament church builds upon them but added the following emphases – devotion to Jesus as Lord (and Christ), an eagerness to gather for instruction and prayer, the welcoming of God’s Spirit and gifts in community, both mind and Spirit-directed singing (I Corinthians 14:15), Trinitarian worship, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph 5; Col 3) and worship Evangelism – a willingness to overflow into God’s world with God’s love (Hebrews 13:15-18).

Worship As Transformation
So, as we discover more of all that God is, and as we respond with all that we are, what should the tangible result of such worship be? I believe the answer is transformation. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he writes the following amazing words, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom [liberty]. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect [beholding as in a mirror] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness [into the same image] with ever-increasing glory [from glory to glory], which comes [just as] from the Lord, [the Spirit] who is the Spirit.” NIV [NASV] In more contemporary terms, Jack Hayford concurs with Paul when he states “worship that refuses to move beyond entertainment and stimulation will, over time, display a tendency to corrupt itself. Contemporary worship must move beyond stimulation to transformation and incarnation.”1 I could not agree more.

Do the Scriptures support this idea of transformation following an encounter with the God of the Scriptures? Absolutely!

• Moses encounters God on the mountain and is changed!
• The “worship team” singers lead King Jehoshaphat’s army in praise and the circumstances are changed!
• David sings for Saul and an evil spirit is driven away; Saul’s mental health is changed!
• The Hebrew psalmist in Psalm 73 goes into the Temple discouraged and emerges changed!
• Isaiah goes into the Temple and is changed!
• The woman at the well meets Jesus and is changed!
• The Holy Spirit comes to the Church and the disciples are changed!
• Paul meets Jesus on the Damascus Road and is changed!
• Paul and Silas are beaten and thrown in jail but they worship; the prison keeper is changed!
• Unbelievers come into dynamic worship and they are changed (1 Corinthians 14:24)!
• John sees the worship of heaven and is changed!

True Worship
Biblical worship is then not primarily for our personal enjoyment or entertainment. Worship is an antenna of gratitude that helps eliminate all the cultural static and enables us to tune in to the voice and activities of God in his world and in his church. If during worship, we never see Christ as King, true worship has eluded us. If during worship, we never sense a need for cleansing – repentance & renewal – we have failed to worship. If during worship, we enjoy the music, the preaching, and the people but over time fail to connect to God’s kingdom purposes, our model of worship has failed us – regardless of the excellence of the musicians, communicator, and the richness of fellowship within a community.

Jacob is remembered for his response to the presence of God. Moses is remembered because of his response to the presence of God. Isaiah is remembered because of his response to the presence of God. An unnamed Samaritan woman is remembered because of her response to Jesus. Paul is remembered because of his response to the presence of Jesus. John is remembered because of his encounter with the Ancient of Days. I often wonder – how will we be remembered?

In conclusion, worship is responding to all that God is with all that we are. That’s how the Bible unpacks it. Whenever anyone accepts Jesus Christ as Lord, the good news in him or her begins to grow. That seed of the Kingdom responds in gratitude directed towards God. We thank for what he’s done; we praise him for who he is; we worship him because he’s worthy. As we see who he really is, the Christian heart bows in adoration and expectation, and is moved by the Spirit toward personal transformation and incarnation. Like Isaiah discovered, the God of all creation will, at special moments and “at certain places,” engage our thanksgiving and praise with a revelation of his good purposes. Worship prepares us to hear God’s voice – in our hearts, in the church, in the family, and in the world.

So, I believe that all of creation yearns to worship God. All of history is moving towards answering once and for all who will be worshipped as God. Satan knew the ultimate issue was worship – he hit it straight on with Jesus (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Everything is on a collision course with this final reality – “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and all they that dwell therein.” Paul tells us who will emerge as victor when he writes “every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, that JC is Lord to the glory of the Father.” John graphically recounts for us that the atmosphere of heaven is worship and that heaven is to be populated with worshippers “from every tribe, every language, every people, and every nation.” Spirit-directed worship reminds us regularly that Jesus really succeeded in his mission. Worship helps us to celebrate His victory now in part, enough to give us a glimpse of how it will be one day for those who love his appearing. Biblical worship touches heaven and, as a result, changes earth through those believers who treasure the incredible opportunity of “responding to all that God is with all that they are.” SELAH.

Want to know more?  Check out the Integrity Worship Institute training curriculum for worship leaders, pastors and worship team members!

Pete Sanchez, Jr. is vice president and dean of Integrity Worship Institute. Used by permission, © 2000, Pete Sanchez, Jr.

Ask these questions to the average believer in your church—how would they respond? Their answers might surprise you.

In reality, worship remains that mysterious weekly activity that so many American Christians drive to or participate in on Sundays. However, many people in America report that their times of worship are not really meaningful; in fact, most surveyed report that they rarely experience any significant sense of the presence of God during worship.

If such reports are accurate, then, sadly, too many people are entering our well-planned worship services without encountering the God of the Scriptures.

Biblical worship is an encounter that results in personal transformation. These four biblical stories demonstrate what I mean by worship as transformation:

The first is an all-too common story: family turmoil, deception, a forfeited, then stolen inheritance. The thief—a younger brother—runs for his life from an older brother bent on revenge. While running to safety, he stops to rest “at a certain place” to sleep. During the night, he has a Spielberg-type dream—ladders suspended between heaven and earth, angels ascending and descending—during which God makes the identical promise to him once made to his grandfather.

When he wakes up, astonished, he says, “God was in this place and I didn’t know it!” His stopping place, his sleeping place became a holy place. The deceiver, supplanter, and runner became a worshiper—transformed by an encounter with the living God.
The key character in our second story, from Exodus chapter 3, is nearing 80 years of age now. His former life is 40 years behind him. Handling the family business and raising a family is his life now. Memories are all that remain of a regal past. Every once in a while, the face of a murdered man returns to him—the reason he had run away 40 years prior; only the bleating of sheep are able to pierce such moments and assure him that he stopped running long ago.

The man is Moses and today, “at a certain place” in his business-related travel, he sees something he’d seen many times before in the desert of Midian—a burning bush. The intense heat of the day, he assumes. But this bush isn’t burning up! Coming closer, Moses hears the voice of the one his mother had often spoken of so long ago: Yahweh. In contemporary language, God says, “This is a holy place. I am the God of your past, present, and future.”

Moses has an encounter of dialogue, not monologue, with God that begins with “find someone else” and ends with “Okay, I’ll go.” This murderer, this runner, becomes a deliverer—transformed by an encounter with a living God. Moses’ response is, “I’ll go!”

Our next story, from Isaiah chapter 6, involves a desperate prophet. His nation has abandoned God. Judgment is on the horizon. The leaders of the people are all corrupt. Justice no longer exists. Youth are wrongly exalted; women are proud and seductive. People are proud of their sin, arrogantly justifying their actions. Property foreclosures are rampant; unscrupulous people are personally benefiting from their loss. Alcoholism is out of control; even the land has become unproductive; the widow and orphan are forgotten. Godly leadership has vanished. Evil is called good and good, evil. God’s word is continually rejected, reviled, and despised. To make matters worse, the king has died. National grief and personal grief engulf him. Things couldn’t be worse or get worse, it seems.

Isaiah goes to the temple to plead his case. There “at a certain place” he sees the Lord, high and lifted up, unshaken by Isaiah’s concerns. There he sees himself, and finds an unexpected destiny. A grieving, angry prophet becomes a worshiper—transformed in the presence of a sovereign, living God. Isaiah’s response is, “Here am I, Lord; send me.”

Our final story, found in John chapter 4, features a woman with a past. She is half Jew, half pagan. A Samaritan—hated and avoided by Jews. Marriage and commitment have not been kind to her; she is a 5-time loser. So she lives with a man who is not her husband; the possibility of being rejected once more by a man is her daily reality. On a day like many other days, she comes to a familiar well to draw water, a well named after Jacob. But on this day, at “this certain place,” Jesus is there—a male, a Jew, the Lord.

Amazingly, He speaks to her! She didn’t know that He felt an urgency to come. There, He engages her in a dialogue about worship, a topic she had heard much about all her life. But her ideas about worship and her remaining years were transformed by her encounter with Jesus. Her response is to go and tell someone about Him.

Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, and the Samaritan woman each encountered a living God and, as a result, their destinies were altered forever. Because they touched heaven, their lives on earth were changed. Even more, those they touched were changed. The transformed became agents of transformation.

In Part II of “Worship: Touching Heaven, Changing Earth” Pete Sanchez discusses the Psalms as a model for worship, and worship’s transformational power.  Click here to read Part II of “Touching Heaven, Changing Earth.

Want to know more?  Check out the Integrity Worship Institute training curriculum for worship leaders, pastors and worship team members!

Pete Sanchez, Jr. is vice president and dean of Integrity Worship Institute. Used by permission, © 2000, Pete Sanchez, Jr.

Heaven’s Protocol Video – How Do We Live a Lifestyle of Worship?

Title
Heaven’s Protocol: Discover the Pathway into God’s Manifest Presence

Description
Carl Albrecht & Kathryn Scott discuss how we live a lifestyle of worship.  Promo Video for Integrity Worship Institute’s Heaven’s Protocol: Discover the Pathway into God’s Manifest Presence

Click here to see our course on Heaven’s Protocol: Discover the Pathway into God’s Manifest Presence

But beyond such futurist reflections, I remain captured, perhaps even captivated, by a personal commitment to discovering and encouraging what I call a “sustainable models of biblical worship” in the local church.

In this regard, three questions regularly tease my thinking.  First, “Will anything in the present worship renewal endure after all the worship wars and conferences have ceased?”  A second question is this – “in regards to biblical worship, how do those of us who lead worship learn to faithfully keep the ‘main thing,’ the main thing?”  My final and perhaps most important question follows: “What is the Lord really after in this amazing renewal of worship?”

Whenever I mentally process these questions, I almost always return to one biblical concept, what I call ”the amazing power of gratitude” in the life of a believer, regardless of their role in the church. Now I know that gratitude as a worship concept is not new, and it’s probably not as flashy as say, the “postmodern” dilemma.  But I’ve come to believe that gratitude is, in fact, the ” true north” of what I call “sustainable biblical worship.”  So while the word itself may not have a lot of pizzazz, the truth it carries continues to have transformative power in the life of the worshiper.

Gratitude itself is multi-faceted:

Gratitude is GRACE DEPENDENT: At the root of the Greek word for “thanksgiving” (eucharistia) lies the oft-noted Greek word for grace (charis). From the very word itself, it appears that authentic God-honoring worship should be “grace-dependent,” that is, responsive to the magnitude of grace revealed in Jesus Christ. In worship, we express our thanksgiving as a delight over God’s grace, not as a duty to be endured or as a musical pattern to be championed. Gratitude thrives best in the hearts of those regularly stirred by the “good news” that, in Christ, they have freely received a love they could have never earned. Such grace-dependent worship has the power to continually astonish us even as it humbles us before the Christ we serve.

Gratitude REALIGNS VISION: Gratitude, I’ve discovered, is also the main root of a positive attitude. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus teaches us that the “eye is the lamp of the body.” He then goes on to make a distinction between the person who is “full of light” and the person who is “filled with darkness.” His remedy?  A clear, focused, healthy eye!  Since Jesus is probably alluding to how one views the world about them, I’d like to suggest that gratitude has the power to help us focus and align our spiritual vision on the Lord and His sovereign purposes in the midst of all kinds of circumstances.

Gratitude impacts ALTITUDE: Clearly, God’s grace should humble us; His grace does keep our vision focused on what really matters. But I further believe that gratitude singularly affects our “altitude” in worship. If I am correct to describe gratitude as “grace-infused thanksgiving,” then any act of thanksgiving that fails to acknowledge or revel in God’s grace is no worship at all.  In my opinion, the state of our hearts maximizes or minimizes the effectiveness of our “art.” While multi-sensory worship may enrich our contemporary worship climates, gratitude alone has the power to elevate our worship above styles and personal preferences.

Gratitude opens us to GOD-ENCOUNTERS: Have you ever wondered why God seems to bless some people and not others? Perhaps there is power in how we respond to God’s gracious provision in our lives. I’ve watched as God repeatedly moves towards those who acknowledge Him for His grace, His salvation, His Word, His gifts and His lavish love towards them. Such people are not always the most talented, educated, prominent or spiritually mature. But because they are still amazed by God’s grace, God meets them in powerful ways. Perhaps gratitude then is more than a “warm fuzzy feeling towards deity.”  Perhaps gratitude is the invitation God listens for in order to show Himself strong on our behalf.

THE POWER OF INGRATITUDE

So far we’ve seen that gratitude—grace-infused thanksgiving—is a powerful response to God’s unfailing love. But, sadly, ingratitude also has power.  I see ingratitude as the cancer of sustainable biblical worship. The record in Deuteronomy (chapters 8, 10) reminds us that ingratitude has the power to infect us, not only in tough times but also in times of plenty.  Ingratitude, the Psalmist asserts, even has the power to infuriate God (Psalm 78).  Ingratitude also has the power to cloud our vision, leave us blindly wandering in a spiritual wilderness, and rob us of our destiny. The Biblical narratives give compelling but tragic witness to the unenviable fate of the ungrateful.  Clearly, ingratitude has power.

So, here’s my question for you: do you have gratitude? Or better, does gratitude have you?  Biblical gratitude empowers us to respond to the incredible grace of God in Jesus Christ. Gratitude is the password into God’s presence (Psalm 100:4). Gratitude accompanied the supernatural activities of God in the life and ministry of Jesus (see John 6, 11). Finally, gratitude can help create an attitude of infectious influence in our churches, a natural bridge of witness to people living in a self-promoting, ungrateful world.

In my reading of the Apostle Paul’s writings, I find that he never seemed to fully recover from his amazement over God’s extension of grace towards him in Jesus Christ.  I fear that far too many of us may have already recovered from our initial awe over God’s grace.  But listen carefully to Paul’s own words, “But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul later writes these grace-infused words of worship: “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”  His conclusion? “To Him be the glory forever.”  In response, I’ve come to define gratitude as “the redeemed heart’s inability to easily recover from a deep sense of personal amazement at the grace of God in Jesus Christ.”

At this point, I return to my opening question: what will the landscape of worship look like in the future? Despite our best intentions, we just can’t know for certain. But perhaps a better question may be this one: how will our children and grandchildren remember our lives, our response to His activities in our generation? Will our worship legacy be one marked by gratitude or ingratitude, astonishment or indifference?

Someone once wrote that “faith is hearing the music and hope is dancing to it.”  Similarly, I believe grace hears the music of heaven and gratitude dances to it. David concurs when he writes these passionate words to the God who chose Him to be king, confronted his sin, forgave Him, and established him as Israel’s premier songwriter: “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. So that my soul may sing praise to you and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever” (Psalm 30).  Saints, sinners, and psalmists exhort us towards gratitude. Paul oozes with gratitude even as he calls us to “grace-infused” thanksgiving. So, I leave you with this most important question: Got gratitude?

© Pete Sanchez, Jr.,. A Teaching Resource of WorshipCentral™ All Rights Reserved.

Matthew 6:22 NASV

About the author:

Dr. Pete Sanchez, Jr. is Director of Worship Training for The Integrity Worship Institute. Used by permission, © Pete Sanchez, Jr.

Being an Integrity customer has its rewards  like getting $100 off your next Integrity Worship Institute course just for spreading the word to your friends and family! In fact, EVERY TIME you refer a friend who joins the Integrity Worship Institute family, you’ll receive a $100 credit off your next IWI course and so will your friend!*

In order to claim the $100 credit:

1. Your friend will need to fill out the Enrollment form:  http://www.integrityworshipinstitute.com/enroll/index.html
2. A representative will contact your friend shortly after they’ve submitted the enrollment form. They must mention your name to the representative for you both to receive credit.
3. Your discount will be applicable to your next course as soon as your friend completes and pays for their course.

*In order to receive your $100 credit, referral must be a new student. Your discount can be applied to your future courses only and is not valid for existing courses. Offer cannot be combined with another special offer; only one refer-a-friend redemption per course/certificate.