"Blessed are the people who know the festal shout..." (Psalm 89:15, ESV)
"... You are ever on their lips, but far from their conscience" (Jer. 12:2, HCSB).
"... Because these people approach Me with their mouths to honor Me with lip-service--yet their hearts are far from Me, and their worship consists of man-made rules learned by rote" (Isaiah 29:13, HCSB).
"I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the LORD" (Psalm 122:1, KJV).
God pours out blessings on those who hear the call to worship, who prepare their hearts, and tune in to meditate on His nature and work. The essence of this is making a "connection" with God as we make "contact" as it were into His dimension and throne room. Worship is "worth-ship," and we give God His dues respect (render to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's ). Worship is an attitude we can take with us beyond the sanctuary to the workplace, doing all, whatever we do, to the glory of God as one theologian espoused (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31). Work is a form of prayer which is a form of worship, when done to the glory of God, as Augustine of Hippo said, "To work is to pray." All work can be done to the glory of God (i.e., worship).
But we should especially rejoice corporately with the body of Christ: "I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go into the house of the LORD.'" (Psalm 122:1, KJV). We can get into a celestial or worship fix by not letting it become perfunctory or routine, or just memorizing the Dance of the Pious, and going through the motions--any lackadaisical spirit can be avoided and changed by adequate preparation--you cannot just expect to walk into the house of the Lord and expect a miracle at the door!
The point is to spread the cheer: "Once you've experienced it, you want to pass it on!" Church is a spiritual checkup when we take inventory of our soul's needs and condition, but we must learn that it's not about us! We must learn to focus on God; getting our eyes off ourselves and our problems long enough to realize the divine. Some may need to get into the mood so to speak, realizing that worship is not passive nor vicarious--we don't admire someone else worshiping!
The call to worship involves both thanking God for what He's done and praising Him for who He is! When we do this we realize the inherent power of praise, for God inhabits the praises of His people (cf. Psalm 22:3). This will help us to cultivate a heart of praise and worship as we learn to have the right attitude that no one can take away. The real key to worship is the measure of our surrender, not the amount of the Spirit we have, but how much of the us the Spirit has. We rightly submit to God's ownership of our soul. We don't want to be like those who are the nod to God crowd on Sunday and go about their regular routine on Monday--we want the experience to last and to grow in us. Some merely offer lip service to God and don't have their hearts in the right place! But we must realize that there is no "one-size-fits-all" manner or style of worship, we are all built differently and find fulfillment in different ways.
But one thing is sure: we are hard-wired and designed for worshiping God and won't be fulfilled without doing it. Dostoevsky said that if we don't worship God, we'll worship something or someone else. Woe to him who strives with his Maker (cf. Isa. 45:9). Worship should be seen as a privilege and honor and we can say, "I get to worship!" For this reason, worship ought not ever to become blase! Church is more than a social event and worship more than an existential encounter (it must be put into action as we turn our convictions and creeds into deeds). The whole purpose is to get our batteries recharged and to get right with God, back into His service, and to learn more to seek His face and make course corrections in our life.
Malachi was written to those in Israel whose worship had become a sham, mockery, and travesty--and they were not taking it seriously--but their worship had become an insult to the grace of God all because their hearts were not right with Him and they didn't give Him His rightful place, playing church and he exposed the formalism of the worshiping--they were in a worship rut and this is what the doctor ordered: a spiritual workout! God frowns upon mere lip service and the memorizing of the Dance of the Pious (cf. above: Jer. 12:2; Isaiah 29:13). Soli Deo Gloria!
About Me
- Karl Broberg
- I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.