What is worship? I have been thinking about this a lot. The first thing that always pops into my head is just singing or going to “worship” or to a church service. But there had to be more to this small word that is thrown around and has such a significant meaning in our Christian faith.
I remembered back to a coffee conversation I had with a pastor from home a few years ago. He said that worship is a place of your heart. At that point of my life, I really disliked going to traditional services and felt I only was fulfilled when I went to contemporary services. Where was my heart in it? Was it to praise God or be surrounded by my musical preference choice?
Lately, I began to look at what the bible had to say about worship. “I will exalt you and praise your name,” Isaiah 25:1; “Worship in spirit and truth,” John 4:24; “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my innermost being, praise his holy name,” Psalm 103:1; Give thanks, sing to God, extol Him, rejoice before Him, call on Him, come and pray, proclaim His name, cry out, ect. There are so many different ways to worship and praise God, but the bottom line is that it is an outcry of our souls to God. We are proclaiming how great He is. In the famous text setting put to music, known as the Magnificat, taken from Luke 1: 46-55, it begins with Mary saying “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in the truth”.
Worship is all about the heart. In Matthew 7, Jesus teaches that people will come to the gates of heaven who have done many things in the name of Jesus, but did not do the will of the Father. I see worship as a deep heart issue to truly seek God with our whole heart and not just sing empty words. I feel that everyone worships something or someone in some way whether we realize it or want to admit it. I will be the first to confess that sometimes I too realize that I am not putting God first but am distracted by this world and idolizing someone else, seeking acceptance, or worshiping money and time, not trusting God. Granite, I am not singing praise songs to money, but I believe God desires our hearts to burn for Him above anything else. Take Micah 6:8 for example. “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
This is my prayer for me and you: I pray our hearts would burn ablaze more every day for the Lord and that we would not have empty worship but heartfelt cries to glorify the Lord with boldness.
