Worship is the act of honoring and loving the Heavenly Father in a selfless manner. The act of worship involves the complete individual in giving praise, thanksgiving, and reverence to God. The true worship of God is distinguished by the following criteria: first, it comes from the redeemed heart of a man or woman who is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness of sins. Second, true worship of God comes from a heart that desires God alone. We might not assent to having physical idols, but what absorbs our will, our time, our resources most of all? Is it careers, material possessions, money, health, even our families?
Third, true worship of God is the desire to continue to build up our knowledge of God. We need to fill our minds constantly with the things of God; He should always be on our mind, and everything we do should be done for Him. He is a God who will not share us for the sake of His holiness. Worship should be the most natural thing for us. There are three things we can do to change our attitude towards worship in church.
1.
We must give mutual encouragement to
each other.
“We should think about each other to see
how we can encourage each other to show love and do good works.” (Hebrews
10:24, ERV)
2. We
must give thanks together.
“Give thanks to the Lord because he is good. His faithful love will last forever.”
(1 Chronicles 16:34, ERV)
3. We
must pray together.
“Don’t worry about anything, but pray and
ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks for what you have.” (Philippians
4:6,
ERV)
“I need to worship
because without it I can forget that I have a big God beside me and live in
fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin
to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation. I need to worship because without it
I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on.
I need worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn
independence.”
(John Ortberg)[i]
[i] Inspired
by the sermon “Drawing Near to God: Drawing Near with Worship“(installment two)
Sunday August 12, 2018 Pastor Dave Jansen CenterPoint Gahanna Church Gahanna,
OH.
Additional source used: “How can I
know how to properly worship God?” by Got Questions
No comments:
Post a Comment