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Open Our Lips

I was looking back through some bulletins from St. Matthews and found this article from Roger Salter.

OPEN OUR LIPS

To part and move the lips for speech or song is not a difficult action. We do it quite naturally, frequently, and often thoughtlessly, that is without conscious effort. Vocalising comes to us easily. Communication is not normally a huge effort in the physical sense, though it often can be mentally. It seems strange and unnecessary that when we come into the presence of God we commence our worship with the request, “O Lord, open our lips”. It is the recognition that divine worship is vastly different to common speech or song. It is a spiritual exercise that requires divine enabling in the sense of both motivation and matter. God must prompt the heart and mind that command the motion of the lips. Something supernatural must cause something that is usually quite natural. When our lips release our thoughts and words to God these must emerge from a heart that is sincere and a mind that is informed. The God of grace must be the initiator and inspirer of words of grace, of gracious speech that extols the Lord from deep devotion and mature understanding. The feelings and words are truly ours and yet we are asking God to be the activator and author of the praise we offer Him, for worship is a sacred and exalted exercise that must be worthy of the One we adore. This doesn’t mean that worship has to be pompous, pretentious, and artificial. But we are asking that it will flow from a reverent heart in words that are acceptable to a God of majesty and truth. Our speech will be the free expression of our true selves, but not familiar in tone or false in what it affirms. Worship is an offering to God and so primarily it is to please Him and not ourselves. We ask God to open our lips, that is to enflame our hearts and inform our thoughts by His Word and Spirit, because this is verbalization on a higher plane than discourse with our fellow creatures.