Last night, during my team’s worship session, my squad leader Emily made the statement, “God is above all, over all, and in all.” This truth really struck me. God is our Creator, our King, our Teacher, our Rock, our Shepherd, and our Father. How can we not stand in awe and wonder of the Lord and simply worship Him? We are constantly amazed by God as we live each day in His creation, but sometimes we fail to remember to acknowledge and thank Him. Often times we take all that we have for granted and forget to stop and praise the One who made it all, the One who made us. This is exactly what worship is; recognizing how good God is, thanking Him, and praising Him. Hebrews 12:26-28 reminds us “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.” Here, and countless other times throughout the Bible we are commanded to worship, for example, Matthew 4:10 states, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.” Obviously, we are to worship God who has given us so much more than we could ever deserve, but what does it mean to worship? What does worship look like?
Revelation Chapter 4 gives us a perfect example of what worship looks like. John writes about the a vision given to him by an angel of God in which he sees the throne in heaven. The throne, in all its beautiful glory was surrounded by four living creatures who, “Day and night never stopped saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come’ (Verse 8). John continues to describe his vision and explains that surrounding the center throne and the creatures were twenty-four other thrones that seated elders. When “the one who lives for ever and ever” sits on the throne before them, the twenty-four elders “fall down before Him and worship … say[ing] ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being’ (Verses 10-11). This passage gives light to what God’s place in heaven looks like, God created this place for Himself, therefore it must be exactly what pleases Him. We then have a perfect example of what worship looks like.
Worship, however, can look so many different ways. In fact, worship never looks exactly the same for two people, or even the same each time for the same person. To me, the definition of worship is simple; proclaim your love for God. The way you do this does not matter. You could praise Him in song, like a hymn written by Stuart K. Hine, titled, How Great Thou Art, which exclaims how awesome, wonderful, and powerful God is. You could worship God in writing. In fact, there are 150 chapters in the Bible solely dedicated to praising God. The book of Psalms is full of beautifully written passages that extol God, like Psalm 95:3-5 which reads, “For the Lord is the Great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” You could praise God by creating something, a sculpture or painting, that shows your love for Him. You could worship through nature by simply sitting in His creation in awe, thanking Him for the beauty and majesty He made. You could praise Him in prayer. You can worship with others or alone. In, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, the authors highlight how many Christians worship on Sundays in church when, “all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then … all rise together and pray” (Vol. 1 Page 2). The way you worship does not matter, all that matters is that you worship Him!
Worship has played a fundamental part in my own personal spiritual formation. I’ve grown up in a Catholic family where God was always present, however, it took me quite some time to realize I could have a personal, intimate relationship with God. I first began to understand that through worship music. Singing my praises to God was the way I first found Him intimately and to this day, worship songs are still me favorite way to proclaim my love for God. Here, on the World Race, we do a lot of worship. Usually, worship consists of an hour or two where a couple of my squad mates play guitar and lead us in familiar songs praising God. In this time the presence of the Lord is overwhelming, I’ve never failed to truly feel His embrace during any of our worship sessions. Each week, specifically Monday nights, there is scheduled worship with either the whole squad or just in teams, however, worship usually occurs spontaneously 2 or 3 times a week in our squad. This is important to me and my spiritual formation because worship reminds me of my personal relationship with God and encourages me to grow in that area of my faith.
