Worship Thoughts
The #1 purpose of worship is to serve and minister to God with our praise and worship.
Why do I think that? Our God is the one Holy God. He is the Lion of Judah you approach with fear and trembling. He is not tame. The Creator of Heaven and Earth has expectations of his children and of the nations.
Exodus 34:14
Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Moses took down specific rules of engagement between Israel and God in Exodus-Numbers, with the Ark of the Covenant, the management of the Tabernacle, and the work of the priests in his temple. No detail of his house was left out on interacting with the God of Israel.
Why do I think that? Our God is the one Holy God. He is the Lion of Judah you approach with fear and trembling. He is not tame. The Creator of Heaven and Earth has expectations of his children and of the nations.
Exodus 34:14
Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Moses took down specific rules of engagement between Israel and God in Exodus-Numbers, with the Ark of the Covenant, the management of the Tabernacle, and the work of the priests in his temple. No detail of his house was left out on interacting with the God of Israel.
Deuteronomy 10:8
At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.
If you keep going through the Old Testament, there are examples of when Israel returned to genuine praise and an outpouring of adoration toward God. Often, it was when they rediscovered scriptures, reading them aloud in an assembly. They remembered God’s ways and they poured out praise to him.
1 Chronicles 16:29
If you keep going through the Old Testament, there are examples of when Israel returned to genuine praise and an outpouring of adoration toward God. Often, it was when they rediscovered scriptures, reading them aloud in an assembly. They remembered God’s ways and they poured out praise to him.
1 Chronicles 16:29
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts.
John 4 is often used to teach worship, but I view the next scripture as the shift to a one-on-one relationship with God-Among-Us. Jesus changed the paradigm of worship. This is where you realize your individual, child-of-God self has something to return to the HOLY God on High, and he longs to hear it. God will be praised, as the rocks will worship him if you do not, yet God wants to hear you worship him. Each human being can be changed and transformed when we learn to release and return our authentic worship, as an organic response of worship or practice of praise, back to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with our little human spirit and truth.
John 4 is often used to teach worship, but I view the next scripture as the shift to a one-on-one relationship with God-Among-Us. Jesus changed the paradigm of worship. This is where you realize your individual, child-of-God self has something to return to the HOLY God on High, and he longs to hear it. God will be praised, as the rocks will worship him if you do not, yet God wants to hear you worship him. Each human being can be changed and transformed when we learn to release and return our authentic worship, as an organic response of worship or practice of praise, back to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with our little human spirit and truth.
John 4:23-24
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
There are days praise is fun and beautiful to worship God. Or ones where we are grieving and praise is far from our tongue. It’s not always natural and it is often a discipline to minister worship to God, not ourselves or our issues. I have great respect for disciplines of the faith while disliking them at times. The routines of faith actions build my life in God.
Worship requires practice and discipline, not just singing or music. There are days I have to give up what I’d rather do and engage with worshiping at the worst times, knowing I must serve the Lord with worship as a priestly duty. There will be days of joy when praise is easy. And there are days of darkness where praise is a choice and a sacrifice. I believe both minister to God, but the second is highly valued by the Lord enthroned on our praise. He knows what it costs us.
Romans 12:1
There are days praise is fun and beautiful to worship God. Or ones where we are grieving and praise is far from our tongue. It’s not always natural and it is often a discipline to minister worship to God, not ourselves or our issues. I have great respect for disciplines of the faith while disliking them at times. The routines of faith actions build my life in God.
Worship requires practice and discipline, not just singing or music. There are days I have to give up what I’d rather do and engage with worshiping at the worst times, knowing I must serve the Lord with worship as a priestly duty. There will be days of joy when praise is easy. And there are days of darkness where praise is a choice and a sacrifice. I believe both minister to God, but the second is highly valued by the Lord enthroned on our praise. He knows what it costs us.
Romans 12:1
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.
Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.
I called worship a duty to serve God when we praise, but it’s not a vain or burdensome task. It’s a required Christian service unto God. So much else can and does happen in and with worship, but the first purpose of the people of God’s house is to minister to, love on, and worship God.
I called worship a duty to serve God when we praise, but it’s not a vain or burdensome task. It’s a required Christian service unto God. So much else can and does happen in and with worship, but the first purpose of the people of God’s house is to minister to, love on, and worship God.
1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Comments
Post a Comment