Clutching our Chest

A common practice in religion, Christianity in particular, is for a person to raise their hands towards the sky in worship. I admit, I have rarely been one to do this and the times I have done it in the past were more out of conformity than a heart-felt desire to do so. However, the question in my mind has always been, "Why do people worship the Lord in this manner?" Some suggest that "by raising our hands in praise to the Lord we are binding the enemy and releasing the praise to combat the attacks." Others believe that raising our hands in praise, "lifts burdens and heaviness" so as to "enter the presence of God." There are many proof texts given to support such beliefs. There are many scriptures that can be used to justify any belief we come up with , but that doesn't make the practice legitimate. Regardless, what I see in all of this is that when people are raising their hands in worship, it is as if they are reaching for something that they don't have at the present time. If we take the two reasons given above we can see that this is the case. Why would you need to lift burdens and heaviness if you were not carrying around these things to begin with? Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11;28)." The question must be asked, "If you are raising your hands in worship to lift burdens and heaviness, and you are a Christian, what is it that you are carrying around that Jesus has not already taken?" I can only imagine that the burdens and heaviness stem from one of two things: trying to live the Christian life in the energy on your own flesh or expecting things from God He has not promised to give. In other words, you are either caught up in some works-related type of Christianity or you are desiring blessings of the flesh that He has not promised to give you. The second question is, "Why are looking to enter into the presence of God if He already indwells you?" In more than one place in scripture we are reminded that the Holy Spirit indwells each person who is born again of the spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, Paul says, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" Later he reaffirms this truth when he says, "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)." If your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then Christ lives in you! And if Christ lives in you, you are in His presence.

Ultimately, the reason people may worship in this manner is because they do not fully understand salvation and what they have received as an inheritance of their faith. Salvation, in short, is the restoration of the Holy Spirit of God. When you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you are born again. The life of God, the Holy Spirit, comes to indwell you and raise you from the dead spiritually, so that you are now alive to God. "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ (Colossians 2:13)." Now, that God indwells you what do you have as an inheritance? "His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3)" and "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3)." If you have everything you need for life and godliness and have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, what else do you need? You know what people believe they need? They "need" physical blessings. They "need" God to bless their fleshly desires for the things of this world. And in their pursuit of all that, they end up believing things about God that aren't true and when their lives don't work out to their liking, they become weighed down with burdens and heaviness caused by their own decisions and thus are left feeling that they are not in the presence of God. Therefore, they raise their hands seeking relief and to be in His presence when, if they are saved, He has been their all along. In general, there is nothing wrong with raising your hands in worship of God. However, raising your hands is just a fruit of what a person believes. If you are raising your hands to lift burdens, heaviness and enter into the presence of God, then you are not so much "binding the enemy," but are actually indicating that the enemy has you so tied up that you don't even recognize that you are bound up in the first place. We all know that Jesus Christ is the truth and Satan is the father of lies. Truth sets you free. Error binds you. As one pastor correctly stated, "Any lost person can do what we call Worship. We raise up our hands, but should be clutching our chest because He lives in us."