On Worship.

One of the greatest losses the church has sustained in our age is an understanding of what it means to worship a holy God. Perhaps this is why we have lost our sense of reverence, unity and purpose. We tend to over emphasize his grace and minimized his holiness bringing him down to our size. we relegate him to the status of any other congregant we may see but once a week at church; struggling for his name if we encounter Him in public. Thus we compartmentalized and privatized our relationship with Him till it’s so limited that it is effectively worthless. It is as if we have removed the founding pillars of our faith to make room for a play place and are surprised to find our spiritual experience crumbling into some lifeless rituals that mean very little to us and nothing to God. But shouldn’t our worship be a response to His holiness?

The break down, I think, is between private and public worship. if a saint spends his week living as he wills, then comes to sing songs on Sunday, it amounts to little more than the “Hand Jive.” But when a saint daily denies himself, takes up his cross, and follows Jesus, his worship is of worth; both to him and to his Father in heaven; for he is always with Christ.

On the one hand if you don’t come to understand what it means to worship God in spirit and truth, God will become tiresome – boring because you will end up not coming to him on his terms but on your own and you will use him as a means to an end. Weather to raise a banner for your own glory and power or to comfort yourself with some legalistic ceremony you feel justifies you with him. Your relationship will become vain religion and will be unacceptable; unlivable.

On the other hand if you do understand what it means to worship in spirit and in truth and how it binds us together, heart, mind, soul and body, how it gives us purpose, unity and dignity as it honors our Maker and can turn the ever so trivial into an eternal treasure, you will realize that worship is not merely external or a time on Sunday morning. It is a lifestyle. It is moment by moment, being coextensive with life. So I encourage you; when ever you are where ever you are, what ever you do, do all to the glory of God.

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“Worship is the submission of all our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by is holiness,

Nourishment of mind by his truth

Purifying of imagination by his beauty,

Opening of the heart to his love

And submission of will to his purpose

And all this gathered up in adoration

Is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable”

William Temple