“To worship God means to ascribe the proper worth to God, to magnify His worthiness of praise, or better, to approach and address God as He is worthy.” -Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines, 103-04
For the Christian believer, worship is something that never grows old or wears on our soul. Instead, worship is a lifestyle that not only honors our heavenly father, deserving of all praise, but also is an opportunity for both the free and weary soul to find rest. Using scripture, let’s look at why we worship and what worship truly is.
Why we worship- In Psalm 95 it says,” Come, let us sing a new song to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to Him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to Him. For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods…Come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for He is our God.” These verses here are just a few of the numerous passages in scripture that command creation, you and I, to worship our creator. The reason that we worship is not as complicated as the church has made it to seem. In fact, it’s quite simple, were created for it and the Lord, creator of earth and everything in it, is worthy of our praise. So, if we were created for this thing that so often is misunderstood, lets look at how scripture defines worship.
What worship is- While often identified as singing, worship is an encounter with the living and Holy God (Exodus 3:1-6). As previously mentioned, I believe the church has wrongly identified what worship truly is. In a church service the weekly bulletin says as always that worship will be from 10:30-11:00 and that time will consist of 4 songs, 1 upbeat song to engage the congregation, 2 worship songs and a hymn for the back-pew elders. What a sad thing it is that we have limited that which we were designed for. When worship is defined as anything that glorifies the Lord then we begin to see that worship has no limits. This includes loving His people well. One more person in the Kingdom is the most glorifying thing to the Lord. The way I view worship is this: me corporately or individually magnifying the name of Jesus Christ through my heart posture and actions. Making disciples glorifies the Lord, therefore evangelizing is worship. Using our talents that the Lord blessed each person with so individually is us saying “thanks, God” for what He gifted to us. This is worship. Do you see how fast the simplest tasks become worship to the Father? While the beauty of this is that our actions are glorifying and making the Lord smile, this is also how fast and easy it is to worship things besides the Lord. When you attribute your giftings to anyone but the creator, you have no made an idol. It’s that simple to fall into the sin of worshiping a false god.
Worship is not boosting God’s ego. He doesn’t need that from us. It’s not building Him up. He doesn’t need to be told who He is. He knows He is worthy, He knows He is good and faithful. One of the necessities for worship is to remind ourselves and declare His Lordship over ourselves. We worship our Father and Creator not because He needs it, but because He is worthy and deserving of it.
