People often think of worship as singing songs during church services, but it's so much more. Worship means to bring or give God glory. There are many different ways we can worship God. Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." Everything we do is an act of worshipping something. We can worship God with our mind by thinking on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, anything excellent or praiseworthy, Philippians 4:8 says, think about such things. We worship him in attitude, in spirit... Worship is not circumstantial, it is crucial to knowing our Lord and savior!
Those who know Him best worship Him most.
It is impossible to worship God if you do not know Him and since true worship is a response to knowing Him, the more we know about God the better we can worship, or ascribe to Him the worship He is due.
The scene presented to us in Revelation 4&5 is one where the elders and the angels know God far better than we do and the depth of their worship is directly tied to their knowledge of God. What this says to you and me is that if we want to worship God better we need to become preoccupied with knowing God. How do we do that: Through the study of the word of God and through developing our personal relationship with God.
Far too many Christians see worship as a ritual or as something we do on Sunday mornings with choirs, guitars and music, when in reality worship is about knowing God and responding personally to that knowledge.
And for the record, worship is about God, not about us. It is all about Him. That's one of the reasons it is so sad when people get all up in arms about worship styles. It doesn't matter whether you worship God with a pipe organ or a kazoo, it's about God, not about you.
If you want to cultivate the discipline of worship in your life and you want your worship to be authentic, you need to preoccupy yourself with knowing God, with Who He is and what it is He has done. And let me add that this knowledge is not based on how you feel or what someone else has said, it is based on the revelation of God through scripture. The more you know Him the more you will be driven to worship Him. Those who know Him best worship Him most.
The apostle Paul says in Romans 12:1-2,
"I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (ESV)
Worship involves the way we live our lives. It is who we are before God, both publicly and privately, both internally and externally, both spiritually and physically.
So, what does your worship look like this morning? Are you going through the motions or is there an authentic connection between you and God as you come before His throne? What are you worshiping? Whatever preoccupies the majority of your time is what you worship. It's just that simple.
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