Bill Johnson - The Process of Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship
So we enter gates with Thanksgiving; we enter the courts. Courts come into the actual presence. If you go through that Psalm, you will see in the following descriptions of what to do in the actual presence of that king, and there's that response of worship. I like to put it this way: Thanksgiving is our response to the works of God, praise is our response to the nature of God, and worship is our response to the presence of God. Now, I don't want to make those hard and fast rules, but there is overlap. But that's the essence of that concept: Thanksgiving, praise, and worship. You will see in Scripture Thanksgiving and praise both being offered as a sacrifice.
What does the sacrifice mean? It means it's beyond convenience. What does that have to do with strengthening yourself in the Lord? Everything. There’s something about facing confusion, facing loss, disappointment—whatever it might be—and standing in that place where you're willing to give Him thanks, to give Him honor in the middle of things you can't control. So in Thanksgiving and praise, we give Him an offering, the sacrifice. But I can't find anywhere where worship is given as a sacrifice. In Thanksgiving and praise, what we say is the offering; in worship, I'm the offering, and in worship, you're the offering. That's why Thanksgiving and praise are quite easy in our corporate gathering. True worship is very different because we become the living offering presented before the Lord for Him to do as He pleases.