Worship as Lifestyle
This is my January newsletter article…I’m not extremely happy with it…But, it gets the job done and was in by the deadline. Enjoy!
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2, TNIV)
During the month of January, we will be focusing on the topic of worship as we meet together on Sunday mornings. It seems like such a natural thing to talk about as we come out of the Advent season and look towards our Lenten journey. We just celebrated the birth of Christ…God coming to us in human form…and the only fitting response is to worship Him!
Worship is a hot topic these days! You can go to the bookstore and find CD’s, videos, books, audio books, and devotionals that all focus on the topic of worship. You can get magazine subscriptions to publications that focus on the concept of worship. You can visit websites that are totally devoted to the issue of worship. The resources on the topic of worship are seemingly endless.
And, it seems like many of these various resources define worship in many different ways. Some of these resources define worship as our weekend gatherings (what we call Sunday morning worship services). Some narrow the definition of worship to personal quiet times with God or the times in our services where we sing together.
Yet, many of these resources do agree on one thing: Worship is all about glorifying God. Worship is God’s people doing what they can to give God all the glory, honor, and praise that He is due.
For me, worship isn’t just weekend church services, praise and worship music, or personal quiet times with God. For me, worship is every moment of every day. Worship is all about offering our lives, every area of our lives, to God. This means our prayers, our praise, our confessions, our finances, our service to others, our occupations, our hobbies, all of our words and deeds…everything!
Worship is the “act of adoring and praising God, that is, ascribing worth to God as the one who deserves homage and service.” Worship is how we express our love and praise to Jesus, who first loved us and gave himself up for us. Worship is about expressing love, devotion, adoration, and praise to God. Worship is a lifestyle of being in love with God and in awe of him at all times. Everything we say or do should be offered to him in worship. Everything…no matter what our occupation, social status, age, race, sex…no matter our circumstance…everything can and should be an act of worship. (paraphrase of Dan Kimball in his book, “Emerging Worship“)
A great way to keep ourselves in an attitude of worship is to continually ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing glorifying God?” This is a key question we need to use to examine our worship lifestyle. That’s what worship is…a lifestyle! It’s not something we go to or do…It’s something we are! That’s what being a “living sacrifice” is all about…worship!
My prayer for our church this month is that we will become a people that lead lives of worship…that we will glorify God in all our words and deeds…and grow deeper in our love and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
And now, A Word From Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“Religious thinking, believing, feeling are among the most deceptive activities of the human spirit. We often assume it is God we believe in, but in reality it may be a symbol of personal interests that we dwell upon. We may assume that we feel drawn to God, but in reality it may be a power within the world that is the object of our adoration. We may assume it is God we care for, but it may be our own ego we are concerned with. To examine our religious existence is, therefore, a task to be performed constantly.”