On Easter Sunday I walked through the blue doubledoors of my church, United Christian Fellowship of Palmdale, Calif. It had beenalmost a year since I had been there.
I was anxious to go inside because I was lookingforward to the dynamic praise and worship that I had missed so much while awayat college.
When I walked into the sanctuary, the choir wassinging songs of hallelujahs and praise to Jesus. However, to my to my surprisethere were only a few people out of hundreds in the congregation standing upworshiping.
My heart was dismayed because I couldn’t believe howdisrespectful church people could be. Furtively, I questioned if they knew thatpraise and worship was a time to glorify and thank Jesus for all the thingsthat he has done, especially on a day like this (Easter Sunday), the day inwhich we recognize the resurrection of Christ.
But after several minutes the music and song of thechoir deceased. I wondered why it had stopped so soon? Then I heard the voiceof someone crying from the pulpit. I shifted my eyes and looked ahead to seewho the cries were coming from.
In the front of the pulpit sat a middle age, lightskinned woman in a wheelchair. With tears falling from her eyes she said, “I was sitting there in thecrowd, watching as the choir praised Christ, and all I could think was ‘I wishthat I could stand up and praise.'”
This woman had been in a severe car accident twoweeks prior, which caused her to be permanently paralyzed from the shouldersdown.
“You all just don’t know how blessed you are to beable to stand up and praise Christ,” she said. “Yet you decide to sit downrather than thank him for all of the things he’s done.”
The woman was right. People sit down on the fact that Jesus has been so good tous, not acknowledging that the woman in the wheel chair could’ve been any oneof us.
We lack momentum when it comes to praising Jesus butI bet that if there were a Jay-Z concert everybody would be clapping, yelling,and singing until they couldn’t go on any longer.
But Jay-Z didn’t pay any contribution to our salvationso why should we praise him like he’s our savior?
We neglect the fact that Jesus is the only one inwhich praise and glory is due because he is the reason we live and have ourbeing.
I don’t know about you, but I am going to lift myhands and praise the name of Jesus Christ. Praise is the least that I can offerto the man who gave his life so that I could live.
What you gonna do?
