8 “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
When we worship, I am talking about a right worship spirit not fighting over forms and making it about emotions alone. Good God-pleasing worship depends on a right mental grasp of the way God really is, truth.
If we make worship an idol of our own creation, we are not really worshiping God. In the worship wars, there is a danger we are making worship into a God, instead of worshiping God. This quote below is eye-opening and deserves some deep reflection.
Read: Does The Bible Influence You Enough?
“How much church attendance and “Christian” activity preoccupy believers today with things they assume please God yet without ever really ministering materially or spiritually to the desperately needy people of our world? How much of our money is tied up in church buildings or spent only on programs and activities to make ourselves happy rather than caring for the hurting in our midst and across the globe? The more affluent sectors of Western Christianity frequently and frighteningly resemble the religion of the Pharisees as depicted here. God declares all such religion “vain” or futile (v. 9).” [1]
God created us to Worship Him.
True worship is based on a right understanding of the nature of God and coming before God valuing God’s worth. We get the honor to come together with a body of fellow believers and sing praises, offer prayers, hear accounts of God, of the history of God’s faithfulness; all to enhance our ability to treasure God above all things. This is true worship at its core, making God our crowning jewel of life, and lifting Jesus as the name above all names.
I love the words of A W Tozer, “Everything in God’s creation has its purpose. God created the silkworm to make silk; the bird was created to sing; the sheep for their wool. Throughout the Bible, the prophets and apostles all testify that God made us for a purpose and that purpose is to sing His praises before the hushed audience of all creation.”
“The purpose of nature is to lead us to the Creator and to worship Him. The purpose of man’s feelings and emotions is to lead to the One who implanted those within the heart of man, to the Creator. Everything in all of creation is to point to the Creator and evoke within adoring wonder and admiration and worship. Wherever we go, we can worship.
“When God made the human soul in His own image, He did so that we might act according to that Divine nature. He never intended the virus of sin to infect that sacred place within man. Sin, therefore, is the unnatural thing. It is a foreign substance defiling man’s heart and life, repelling God’s gaze. Because of this [fallen] condition in man, sin is [now] natural, worship is unnatural; and so, few people really do it.”
Worship is a powerful way to connect us with the Creator. However, that worship is not limited to Sunday morning only. Every day our life is an act of worship. As Paul reminds us,
“I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1
[1]Blomberg, C. (1992). Matthew (Vol. 22, p. 239). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Rev. B. Keith Haney is Assistant to the President for Missions, Human Care, and Stewardship of Iowa District West. He has been an ordained pastor for twenty-seven years and has served multi-ethnic urban congregations in Detroit, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. He is the author of numerous devotionals, including One Nation under God: Healing Racial Divides in America. He is married to Miriam (Bickel) Haney, and they have six children and two grandchildren.
