Prayer is Worship and Worship is Prayer

Tephillah

Tephillah

The Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life. (Ps. 42:8 NASB)

The Hebrew word in this verse that is translated as prayer is tephillah. It is used far more often than any other: only six times in OT scripture is prayer other than tephillah. 

Tephillah is prayer of praise, worship, and thanksgiving, but it is also a means of communicating in prayer by which all prayers can be expressed. In the Psalms we see the meaning of tephillah; the Psalms, of course, are songs of David (mostly), and appropriately, therefore, the meaning of tephillah is prayer that is put to music and sung. There we have it, that deeper meaning—“prayer is sung!” Prayer is making melody with our hearts to the Lord. Hence, in God’s mind there is no distinction between worship and prayer; they are both offerings of incense, a sweet savor to God. 

PRAYER IS WORSHIP AND WORSHIP IS PRAYER

            

And so, as we pray for the church, we should worshipfully pray and prayerfully worship, meaning, simply, that our prayers are an offering of worship and our worship is an offering of prayer because they are one and the same. It is this essence of prayer—as communicating our petitions to God in an attitude and posture of worship—that should be ever present in our hearts and minds as we pray.

Now therefore, our God, hear the prayerof Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate. (Dan. 9:17 NKJV)

The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer. (Ps. 6:9 NKJV)

Both the words for prayer in these scriptures are the word tephillah. I used the

scripture from Daniel as an example of tephillah because his prayers of intercession reflect the spirit—the essence—of the kind of prayer that I believe should be offered when praying for the Church, or for anything else for that matter.

Thus, every time we sing a song of worship, we are praying melodiously to the Lord. Open our eyes and our hearts, Lord, that we may truly tephillah in awe of You with every moment and with every breath. To You be the glory. Amen.