Worship

I was teaching at the Manna House last week on worship and I felt the Lord gave me some insight that I had not really appreciated before so I thought I would share it with you. Maybe you already know all of this but if you do then great for you.

The definition is the honor, reverence and homage paid to a superior being, i.e. God. The word in English means "worthship" and denotes the worthiness of the individual being honored. When used of God, it is an acknowledgementof who God is and what He has done. In Greek there are two words which are used mostly for worship. The first is proskyneo which means to kneel before or to bow down before face down much as a servant does before a king. The second word is latreuo which means to minister or serve, usually referring to a priest performing his duties during the sacrifices.

While we usually equate worship with singing, it really is so much more than that. This was first brought to my mind by Matt Reddman in his song "The Heart of Worship" and I have been trying to understand it more and put it into practice. When we pray, we acknowledge that we are in need and that there is One who is powerful. We also worship when we give thanks to God for what He has done and who He is. Other activities that are worshipful are giving, communion, confession, praise, obedience as well of course as singing, dancing, raising hands ect. I could go into detail on all of them but will not because of space.

The most important verse is in John 4:24 where Jesus says that His true worshippers worship in spirit and in truth. What does it mean to worship in spirit. You could probably write a book on that but I think that it involves our spirit connecting with God's Spirit. It has the idea of where our heart is. We can go through the motions of worship much as the Israelites did in the sacrifices, but God said their hearts were far from Him. Many of us today also go through the motions of true worship but our hearts are not in it and God knows what is in our hearts. We need to get back to a lifestyle where our hearts are in submission to God and have a passion for the person of Jesus. What about worshipping in truth? I used to think that that meant spending time in the Word and knowing the truth of the Scriptures, and certainly that is a part. But I have come to realize that it means that our worship should be real. We do not need to be hypocrites when we worship but we need to make sure that we believe what we sing, our praises are true feelings, our giving is cheerful, and our lives are full of humility and obedience. This is what it means to worship in truth.

So when you wake up tomorrow, begin the day with worship but it does not have to end there but can be a day long affair and a lifestyle. After all, if our purpose in this world is to glorify God then it behoves us to really understand what that means.