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Discovering Worship
July 7th, 2007
By: J.D. Heiney
God’s Desire for Worship
An important question that needs to be asked is; what does God get out of worship? Is it really that important to Him? If we can answer these questions then we might possibly change how we worship forever. Once we know how God feels about worship, maybe our hearts will long to fulfill His desires.
Worship is our chance to minister to God. Yes! We can actually minister to God. The Song of Solomon actually tells us that we literally ravish the Lord’s heart.
“You have ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.” Song of Solomon 4:9 (LITV)
The Lord’s heart is ravished by us, His bride. We minister to God through our intimacy with Him. Worship enhances intimacy. Worship is essential in maintaining an intimate communion with God. When we worship God, we touch His heart in a special way. The book of Exodus gives us a very intriguing glimpse into the heart of God concerning our worship.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” Exodus 8:20 (NIV)
The Lord told Moses that the reason he wanted the Israelites free from the slavery of Egypt was so that they may worship Him! I believe that God desperately missed the worship of His people. He longed to smell the pleasing aroma of worship rising from the altar of His people’s hearts. This is the same desire of God today. He longs to smell the aroma of our worship. As we lift our worship up to God from the altar of our hearts, God’s heart is so ravished that He releases His goodness back to us. This should be the pattern of worship in the church. Our worship services should be about capturing God’s heart with our worship in such a powerful way that He responds by releasing His heart back over us.
Going Through the Motions
Worship is more than a series of actions or songs. Just because you sing worship songs and lift your hands doesn’t make it worship. We’ve already seen how worship must be sacrificial. True worship must be spiritually motivated and based in truth. One of the most powerful revelations I’ve had concerning worship has to do with our spiritual posture in worship. What do I mean by that? By spiritual posture, I am referring to the attitude of our heart from which we worship. If true worship is spiritually motivated and grounded in truth, then a certain attitude must accompany our worship. This attitude is a reflection of the condition of our hearts. It has to do with our motives for worshipping and our understanding of what we are doing in worship. Let me show you what I mean by quoting one of the most powerful scriptures regarding worship that I have found in the entire Word of God.
“The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)
Wow! What an incredibly powerful passage of scripture. God
is saying that we can do all the right things, say all the right
things and go through the right motions, but our hearts can
still be far from Him. He also shows us that true worship is
not man-made or man-taught. Worshipping God out of tradition
is as worthless as having no real love for a person, but instead
only loving them because someone told you to. You love them,
but the love is not based upon your choice to love, but rather,
you being influenced to love. This is actually a form of deception.
Our worship of God must come from our own revelation of His
worthiness and be offered completely by our choosing to do so.
Could it be that coercing people to worship God in our church
services is completely in vain? I’m not even going to
go there! ...continue
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