One of the interesting things about human nature is that we don’t really struggle with obedience in general — we struggle with who we’re obeying.

For instance, if a stranger in a parking lot tells you to move your car, your response will most likely be much different from if a police officer with lights flashing behind you signals to pull over. The action may look the same (you move your car), but what changed? Your perception of authority.

The same thing happens in everyday life. If your co-worker suggests you redo a report, you might weigh your options or flat out tell them to jump into the lake. But if your boss says the report needs to be redone, your decision becomes much simpler. In other words, authority clarifies obedience very well.

The truth is, obedience becomes easier when we are convinced of both someone’s authority and their character. If we trust that a person has the right to lead and that they have our good in mind, obedience doesn’t feel oppressive — it feels reasonable.

That brings us to something deeply spiritual.

Many of our struggles with obedience toward God are not primarily struggles of rebellion. They are struggles of perception. We say we believe God is powerful. We say we believe He is good. But in the daily realities of life — in our decisions about forgiveness, generosity, surrender, trust — we often operate with a much smaller view of Him than we realize. And this is where our Hallelujah series comes into focus.

Praise is not just emotional expression. Praise is perspective correction. When we lift our voices in Hallelujah, we are not informing God of who He is — we are reminding ourselves. Praise enlarges our awareness of His greatness and His goodness. And when that awareness grows, obedience begins to make sense.

When it comes to praising God, have you ever found yourself in an awkward position because the language of worship is a foreign language to you. I mean, even the word Hallelujah, someone asked me last week, they said they know it's some kind of praise for God - but what does it actually mean? And, I thought --- yeah, that would have probably been a good idea to define it for you... It's Hebrew for (ready for it?) PRAISE GOD.

What happens when you have believers who love God, who believe in God - but when it comes time to express praise and worship to God, they just fall back on something rote, without a lot of meaning to it, and something they may not understand, so they really can't be intentional about it.

It's like memorizing the phrases before heading to another country, but not really understanding the language because you aren't fluent in it.

In the same way our worship may become more meaningful when we learn to be fluent in our Hallelujah. Because praise has a vocabulary. Heaven has a language. And God invites us to learn how to speak it. And it comes, first of all, with remembering WHO God is and WHAT He does.