Worship: An act of reverence

This short definition of the word worship is good for helping us gain some insight into the idea of worship. Examining the two words, act and reverence, we can see an important part of our relationship with our God.

When we look at the short definition, we see that the word act. To act is an active idea. When I was a boy learning grammar, my teacher told us that a verb is an action word. What do you think are the actions we’re to be doing when we worship our God?

I think we must guard against being sponges in the body of Christ. By that I mean we cannot show up and just expect to absorb what God has for us. We must not be receivers only, but we must be in active worship of God. We must be sure we are the “do-ers” and not just the receivers.

So, what are some of the actions we should be doing? Well, like always, let’s find our answers in His word. Examine I Chronicles 16:23-36. A fine list of reverential acts are outlined there.

Sing to the Lord
Proclaim good tidings
Tell of His glory and deeds
Praise Him greatly
Fear Him
Ascribe glory to Him
Bring an offering
Worship in holy array
Say, “the Lord reigns”
Give thanks
Bless the Lord

This is just a short list from King David. These are active ways to worship God. Of course there are more, but these give us some idea about what the active part of worship is. We must do these things as individuals and corporately.

Today, we no longer bring sacrifices and offerings of grain, libations or animals. Those acts were elements of a different part of God’s overall plan. With Christ we have a new covenant and we are to worship in a different way. In fact, Christ Himself tells us the way we are to worship.

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24)

One of the wonderful things about our relationship with God is that we can communicate with Him directly in spirit. We can talk directly to God without having a human intercessory. But, when we look at this passage from the Gospel of John, we see that we’re also to worship in truth. I think this is a key element of our worship of God.

I believe worshipping in truth means that we’re to be honest with ourselves and honest with God. He already knows our hearts, so we cannot lie to God. So, we can tell Him how we’re feeling and what’s honestly in our hearts.

But, there is a danger in today’s Church. Often, we say and do things in worship because we’ve always done them. We get into habits of worship — sometimes without knowing the meaning behind them. We perform things or say things because it’s expected of us or because we’ve always done so. But, often times these are not the true reflections of our hearts at the time.

God doesn’t want empty worship. He wants our true worship. He wants us to be honest in what we’re saying. The Psalms are an excellent example of worship. We don’t always see praises in the Psalms, do we? We see laments and we see complaints. But, we never see any of the psalmists dishonestly praising God with empty praises. Remember…

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14

The other important word in our definition of worship is reverence. A short definition of reverence is “a feeling of deep respect, esteem, awe and love.”

I don’t think there’s any born again believer who doesn’t feel this way about God. But, let’s combine this definition of reverence with the word act. What does that look like? Again, let’s look in the Psalms for just one example. David writes…

I will tell of Thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise Thee. You who fear the Lord, praise Him; all you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. (Psalm 8)

In this psalm, we get a picture of how David feels about God and how he encourages all of us to worship God.

Let’s look a little closer at the definition of revere. There are some key words in there that are important to study.

Respect – how do we demonstrate deep respect for God? I think the ultimate way to show this level of respect is to be completely obedient to Him. Do not disobey Him.
Esteem – We show how much we esteem God in the way we prioritise what’s important in our lives. Where does God fit in? Truthfully, is He first or second or third? Is He in the background of our lives? Or is God on the throne of our lives? Is God the reason for what we do each day?
Awe – One way to show awe is to tell God who He is. Sometimes a good way to do this is to pray the Psalms. But, acknowledge to the best of your ability your awareness of who God is and what He’s done and will do.
Love – No greater love has a man than to give his life. Love Him with all your heart, mind, and soul. Submit the whole of your life to God. This means turning over control of all parts of your life to God.

Again, we must always remember that worship is active not passive. God blesses us as He desires. If He chooses to bless us through a sermon on Sunday, then we are blessed. But, that is not worship — that’s part of discipleship. In this way we are the recipient of God’s love. However, as God’s people we must be active in our worship of the Creator, the Lover of our souls, Whose name is above all names.

Remember our example of the sponge. A sponge absorbs water much like a believer can absorb from God, from His word and from His teachers. But a sponge doesn’t give the water back unless it’s squeezed. Our heavenly Father doesn’t want to squeeze us all the time for us to give service and worship to Him. So, let’s be sure we as believers revere our God actively in our own lives and when we gather together.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 10 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 10: "The sacrament of living"

Editor's note: If you’ve been following along, you know that the editor has taken each chapter of the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer and published here a short study in the form of articles. Chapter 10 is the final installment of this series. We hope you have found the series helpful to you in your walk with Christ.

Basing his last chapter on the doctrine found in 1 Cor. 10:31, Tozer ends his book on a triumphal note. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” His main point for us to understand is that we cannot have internal peace if we divide our lives into the sacred and the secular.

This false division of life causes inner turmoil and tends “to break up so that we live a divided instead of unified life.”

Merging two worlds

We live in two worlds simultaneously, the fleshly or natural and the spiritual. When we keep them separate, we “are uneasy most of the time ... with a feeling of deep frustration.” This is not the light yoke that Christ promises the repentant believer. But, we subject ourselves to this by trying “to walk a tight rope between two kingdoms and [we] find no peace in either.”

Tozer’s claim is that this dualistic life is not only unhealthy physically and spiritually, it is “wholly unnecessary.” He teaches that a divided life between the sacred and the secular is not founded in the New Testament. Christ Himself is the example, saying He does all things to please the Father.

This example was echoed by Paul who teaches us that we are to do all things to the glory of God. This isn’t just platitudes, this is the genuine way of the Christian walk. Tozer explains it this way, “It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.”

All things can glorify God

It begs the question, can eating and drinking and the banal things of life be an act of reference? Tozer, as well as the Apostle Paul, teaches that this is the case. “It may be said that every act of life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s Supper.

Many may still disagree with this notion. However our author wrote that if we are saved and give ourselves wholly to God, all acts are holy. “By one act of consecration of our total selves to God we can make every subsequent act express that consecration.”

As Christians, we must not make a mental or actual division between the sacred and the secular or we will live divided lives. Once we get past this dilemma, the reality of living in a unified manner for Christ, it will “condition the complexion of our thoughts.”

Our morning meditations must include this training. We must recall to our mind frequently that our daily acts can be acts of worship and can give glory to God. “The knowledge that we are all God’s, that He has received all and rejected nothing, will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us.”

Disciplined sacramental living

Tozer explains that the old way of thinking will want to creep back into our lives because Satan doesn’t want the whole of our lives to be about God. He writes, “It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology.”

Offer every thing we do to God. He will accept them. Remind God in our time of private communion that our intention is to make all our activities for His glory. Or in Tozer’s wonderful style, “Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration.”

A contributing factor to our erroneous belief that we keep things separate is the fact that many Christians believe in sacred places or things.

“It is little short of astonishing that we can read the New Testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of places as distinguished from other places.” Tozer laments that this false doctrine has been allowed to be perpetuated for centuries.

An omnipresent spirit of worship

When Christ was crucified, many things took place. Not the least of which was the total access of the true believer to God. No longer was God limited to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The veil before the Holy of Holies was torn in two. Remember Christ’s own words, “Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Worshipping God is a spiritual matter, not a matter of place or time or things.

Many denominations have let the sacredness of things creep back into the liberty we enjoy through Christ’s work. And it was from this “bondage reformers and puritans and mystics have labored to free us.”

Tozer also cautions us to understand that the concept of sacramental living doesn’t mean that all things are equal or of equal importance in this world or the next. “One act of a good man’s life may differ widely from another in importance.” He uses the example of Paul’s work as a tentmaker as an example. “Paul’s sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an epistle to the Romans, but both were accepted of God.”

Why we act is most important

Driving home his point with his best shot, Tozer continues to explain, “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it,” (emphasis added). Lay people should never consider what they do as inferior to that of the act of a preached sermon. It is the motive of the act that is the key to it being a sacred act done for God’s glory or not.

A spiritual condition is required. Tozer tells us that we must, “Sanctify the Lord God in [our] heart.” Upon doing so, except for our sins, nothing we will ever do will be secular. One who lives this way is pleasing to God. “All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary.”

The Pursuit of God along with The Knowledge of the Holy are two of Tozer’s most popular and impactful writings. I strongly encourage everyone to read and re-read these important, yet short, books.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 9 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 9: "Meekness and Rest"

A popular British comedy shown here in America is titled, “Keeping Up Appearances.” Each episode centers around a middle-aged woman who is desperate to ensure everyone in her sphere of influence considers her to be posh and high society.

The fact is, however, she and her whole family are just everyday people. The humor ensues when she goes to great lengths to protect the complex façade she has created for the outside world to admire. She is breathless at every turn and drags her compliant husband through one fiasco after another. This woman is so busy creating a false life that she fails to notice she’s not living at all.

Funny thing is that we’re all like this in some way or another. We have much to hide from the world that we’re afraid to reveal. And it takes a lot of work to hide our faults. In fact, we are never done with the business of considering how we are viewed by others around us. It’s part of our sin pathology. Our core sin, pride, keeps our pathological engines running, sometimes racing, to ensure we do not lapse into revealing our true selves to the world.

Christ addressed this very thing which is the topic of Tozer’s ninth chapter, “Meekness and Rest.”

Tozer helps us understand that the Beatitudes are the “exact opposite of the virtues” that characterize the way humans live their lives. This, to our unrelenting detriment.

The portrait of human society

The opposite of the Beatitudes is what we see today and is the primary reason we experience many trials and tribulations in our lives. “Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.”

Tozer shows us that it is in this condition that Christ came and spoke godly words when He uttered “blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.”

In this chapter, the author points out that the word meek is too often misunderstood. He shows us that Christ explained it later when He invited men to take up His yoke and bear a light burden.

Christ’s burden is different from man’s burden. Man’s burden is borne by every human — “it is altogether an interior one.” Our burden is self-love and pride which is at the heart of our sin. We are oppressed by this burden for, “the heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest.”

But, Christ’s burden is different. It is light! And when we are released from the burden of man, we find we are at rest. “The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.”

This is real rest for which many seek. A rest that only following and believing Christ can bring. A rest that comes from seeing oneself from God’s perspective. Tozer encourages us, “come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.”

Meek does not equal weak

Don’t equate a meek godly man with someone who is weak in faculties. “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself.”

So what about this inherit the earth promise? That’s a good question and should be answered by what we value compared to what God values. The meek Christian understands that the world will not understand godly values and he has stopped worrying about it. The meek Christian is at rest in knowing that the things God values are eternal and he will one day inherit the earth. “He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father.”

When we put ego and pride aside and take up Christ’s burden, we find we “will have attained a place of soul rest.” We have God as our public defender and are at peace.

Like Lucifer, pride is our sin

Our desire to shine and stand apart from others for our own ego is not any different than that of the great angel Lucifer. Did not he want to shine brighter for others to see? Did not he want to be something he really was not? For his sin of pride, Lucifer lost his position with God and will spend eternity in turmoil. What did Lucifer gain for his pride?

What do we gain in our pride? We gain a tumultuous life filled with constantly defending ourselves against the world. We gain heartache and pain. We gain cruelty and corruption. We gain quarrelling and mistreatment. We gain the consequences of our sin, which are the opposite of the Beatitudes Christ so eloquently articulated on the Mount of Olives.

Our pride is a heavy burden. It is breaking us under its pressure, according to Tozer. He writes, “There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ.”

Rest at the foot of the throne

In a prayer at the end of this chapter, Tozer asks God to help him take God’s “easy yoke of self-forgetfulness.” This is the condition when Christ is on the throne and the other elements of our life are aligned with Jesus. When we place ourselves on the throne of our life, we bear a burden that is impossible in order to keep ourselves on that throne.

Christ calls us, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” Are we experiencing a life of rest or a life of tumult? Are we defeated by trials or do we allow God to defend us?

Or better put by our author:

The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when
we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some
courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are
sharing the new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself. He calls
it “my yoke” and He walks at one end while we walk at the other.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 8 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 8: "Restoring the Creator-creature relationship"

This chapter takes a simple look at our relationship with God because our relationship is a simple one. If we feel it’s complicated, then it is we who have clouded it and mixed it up. It’s this mix up that Tozer addresses in Chapter 8 — the dealing with a properly ordered relationship between man and God.

The author indicates that justification is the “restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-creature relation.” This is, of course, a reference to being born again and all that means regarding our sin, Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

God is the reference point

But, to better understand the relationship, Tozer backs us up to defining a fixed point, which is the I AM, from which we have established our relationship as a human. God is the center, so to speak, but our “difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him.”

In a succinct paragraph, Tozer sums it up:

As the self-existent One, He gave being to all things, and all things exist
out of Him and for Him. Every soul belongs to God and exists by His
pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are,
the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and
complete submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to
give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.

As humans, in our search for the true post-justification relationship with God, we will gladly accept the challenges and failures of “bringing our total personality into conformity to His.” Yet, Tozer doesn’t let us rest with the intellectual reality of this, he pushes us to understand that being rightly aligned with God means a “voluntary exalting of God to His proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance makes proper.”

According to Tozer, this will change us as children of God. We will see things differently and the way we think will be transformed. The transformation, Tozer writes, “will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.”

We gain in our submission

When we acknowledge God’s actual position, we become willing worshippers without shame or worry. Our sense of purpose becomes evident to us. “Let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to God. In exalting God over all, he finds his own highest honor upheld.”

Among many other biblical accounts of God’s people, Tozer points to Christ as our ultimate example. He indicates that Christ did not seek His own honor, but the honor of God, the Father who sent Him. This is worth considering as Christ is fully God Himself. Tozer references Christ who explains that self-honor is nothing, but only honor from the Father is desirable and eternal.

The self can get in the way

Does Tozer believe this is an easy position to take, this total sell out to God? No. He explains that a “God-above-all” position is challenging — especially when self will gets in the way. “The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into effect.” As written in earlier chapters, man must tear the self out and replace the vacancy with God and ascribe to Him all that He is deserving to receive.

What is the result? Simply this, if a man will glorify and consider God above all things in life, including the self, then God will unveil Himself more to the believer and place all His resources at their use. For God knows that “His honor is safe in such consecrated hands.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 3 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God, Chapter Three: Removing the Veil

Tozer begins his third chapter with one of the most famous quotes in the history of man. He does this to ensure that there is no ambiguity about what he believes is the purpose of created man. Tozer quotes Augustine, “Thou has formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

He explains this as the origin of our kind because it’s critical to our understanding of our relationship with God. He echoes it in his own words, “God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say.”

All this is preamble to the point that we are created to be in a right relationship with God, but are guilty of sin. Our “foul revolt” broke this communion and man now lives alone outside of the “manifest Presence” of our heavenly Father. Or more metaphorically, a veil has been erected between us and our Lord because of our sin.

Tozer explains that the redemptive work of God is to “undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt and bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself.”

Why is the veil there?

The veil was what separated the inner chamber of the tabernacle from the holy of holies where the very Presence of God above the mercy seat atop the arc of the covenant. The children of Israel did not have direct access to the holy of holies. They annually sent in the high priest to seek the atonement of his own sins and those of Israel from God. According to Tozer, this was the “beating heart of the Levitical order.” He helps us understand our condition by using the holy of holies and the separating veil and the Flame of the Presence of God as an identical description for us.

He writes, “At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.”

Tozer encourages us to remove the veil so that we can know of His Presence not only intellectually, but, more importantly in our hearts, leading to a personal relationship with the Creator.

What will we find when we push through the veil? Tozer answers that God will uncover Himself in “ravishing fullness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.”

It’s because we don’t push through as believers, that Tozer says we are at a serious loss in the world. “The world is perishing for a lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of His Presence.”

Yes, God is omnipresent. People can understand that intellectually. But, it’s the manifast Presence that we have fled like Adam or Peter after their great sins. However, it is the manifast Presence for which we should seek. This is a spiritual communion — man can know Him really in a “deep spirit” where his “fire must glow or his love is not the true love of God.”

The reason for pushing through

There is something expected when we remove the veil between ourselves and God. It is that communion with a God “so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

This is the love of God to which Tozer refers. Our relationship with God is an ever overflowing satisfaction of our nature to the point of our hearts being fit to break with love for our God. He writes that it is believers with such breaking hearts who have looked with open eye and lived within the Presence.

The point here is that this level of access and relationship with God is available to us. Every believer has the same access to the Presence as the high priests did and the prophet who reports what he sees.

Sadly, Tozer writes that the church is at a loss for want of those who have removed the veil and entered into the company of the Creator. He tells us that “the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with an inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience in the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.”

Do we have access today?

As Tozer has already expressed, the joyous report is that every believer has access to God in the holy of holies. It was through the work of Christ on Calvary. Now there is nothing to keep us from His Presence. Nothing except our pride and sinful nature. Tozer asks, “Why do we tarry without? Why do we consent to abide all of our days just outside the holy of holies and never enter at all to look upon God?”

Scripture records for us that at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem was torn completely in two, forever revealing the holy of holies to all men. Why did God do this? Was it just to send a message to the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees? No, it is a clear message to all men, forever, that Christ has opened the way to the Father because of His shed blood, the atonement secured forever.

But why do we not all take this free gift from God? Tozer explains that it’s more than a cold heart, it is a veil over our own hearts. It’s a veil we must all tear from ourselves so that we do not hide the face of God from our own hearts. Tozer explains this as the veil of the self-life that hides our hearts from the joyous life that could be ours should we remove the veil once and for all. “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.”

To remove this veil will be painful as it is part of our fleshly life. It will tear living spiritual tissue to rend it from our hearts. But, as Tozer writes, “Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the selflife, and then reckon it crucified.”

When this is done, like labor pains, it will be a faint memory. “After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered, in actual spiritual experience, the Presence of the living God.”

Worship of the Eternal God - Part 1 of 3

by Dan Grubbs

In this three-part series, I examine thoughts about what worship of our almighty God is. Part 1 looks at worship simply defined as “acts of reverence.” This three-word definition of the word worship is good for helping us gain some insight into the idea of worship. With a discussion of the two words, act and reverence, we can see an important part of our relationship with our God.

When we look at the short definition, we see that the word act is the verb, also known as an action word. What do you think are the actions we’re to be doing when we worship our God?

Action is in direct opposition to being passive. I think we in the Church today must guard against being sponges. By that I mean we cannot show up each Sunday and expect to just absorb what God has for us. We must not be receivers only, but we must be in active worship of God. However, do not mistake charismatism and empty emotions for worship, either.

Worship is a two-way experience

Remember our definition of worship — an act of reverence. We must be sure we are the doers and not just the receivers.

So, what are some of the actions we should be doing? Well, like always, we should find our answers in His word. Look at I Chronicles 16:23-36. There we get an excellent picture of active worship. In the passage, we are shown a list of worshipful actions. They are: sing to the Lord, proclaim good tidings, tell of His glory and deeds, praise Him greatly, fear Him, ascribe glory to Him, bring an offering, worship in holy array, say, “the Lord reigns,” give thanks, and bless the Lord.

Although not exhaustive, this short list of ways to worship is from a psalm of King David. These are examples of things that are active to do when we worship God. These should give us some idea about what the active part of worship means. We must be in active worship both as individuals and corporately as the local body.

If we want more examples of worship, don’t we have a whole book of the Bible dedicated to active worship of God? What do we find in the book of Psalms? How many verses and how many chapters are an outpouring of worship of God? This is a great example for us to follow when we worship our Lord, especially in light of the conditions and settings the psalmists found themselves in — worshipping in tribulation and in joy.

In spirit and in truth

Today, it's not normal to bring sacrifices and offerings of grain, libations or animals. Those acts were part of the old covenant way of worshipping God. But, with Christ, we have a new covenant and we are to worship in a different way. In fact, Christ Himself tells us the way we are to worship. This can be found in John 4:23-24. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth."

One of the wonderful things about our relationship with God is that we can communicate with Him directly in spirit. We can talk directly to God without having a human intercessory. But, when we look at this passage from the book of John, we see that we’re also to worship in truth. I think this is a key element of our worship of God.

I believe worshipping in truth means that we’re to be honest with ourselves and honest with God. He already knows our hearts, so we cannot lie to God. Therefore, we can tell Him how we’re feeling and what’s honestly in
our hearts.

We can't fake worship

But, there is a danger in today’s Church. Often, we say and do things in worship because we’ve always done them. Individually and as a local congregation, we get into habits of worship — sometimes without knowing the meaning behind them. We perform things or say things because it’s expected of us or because we’ve always done so. But, often times these are not the true reflections of our hearts at the time. God doesn’t want empty worship. Another sad fact is that we've mistaken emotionalism and experientialism to take the place of true worship. It make look like worship on the outside — and no observer could accuse someone of false worship — but on the inside, God sees that the expression is not real.

He wants our true worship. He wants us to be honest in what we’re saying. Again, the Psalms are an excellent example of true worship. We don’t always see praises in the Psalms, do we? We see laments and we see complaints. But, we never see any of the Psalmists dishonestly praising God with empty praises. Remember … "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14.

The other important word in our definition of worship is reverence. A short definition of reverence is “a feeling of deep respect, esteem, awe and love. I don’t think there’s any born-again believer who doesn’t feel this way about God. But, let’s combine this definition of reverence with the word “act.” What does that look like? Again, let’s look in the Psalms for just one example. David writes, "I will tell of Thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise Thee. You who fear the Lord, praise Him; all you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel." Psalm 8

In this psalm, we get a picture of how David feels about God and how he encourages all of us to worship God.

Revering God

Let’s look a little closer at the definition of revere. There are some key words that are important to study.

Respect – how do we demonstrate deep respect for God? I think the ultimate way to show this level of respect is to be completely obedient to Him. Do not disobey Him in anything, even if it is contrary to your personal desires.

Esteem – We show how much we esteem God in the way we prioritise what’s important in our lives. Where does God fit in? Truthfully, is He first or second or third? Is He in the background of our lives? Or is God the focus of what we do each day? Remember, God is a jealous god and will remove those things in our lives that push Him out of first place, be they activities, jobs, or even our family members. Do you put your children or spouse before God?

Awe – One way to show awe is to tell God who He is. Sometimes a good way to do this is to pray the Psalms. But, the important thing is to acknowledge to the best of your ability your awareness of who God is and what He’s done and what He will do.

Love – No greater love has a man than to give his life. Love Him with all your heart, mind, and soul. Submit the whole of your life to God. This means turning over control of all parts of your life to God. Don't call on God as a last resort. Ensure that you never take a step in any direction without first consulting what His will is. That's giving God your life.

For those who like acronyms, you see that the first letters of the words above spell R-E-A-L. God is real in our lives and we must worship him with real reverence.

Again, we must always remember that worship is active not passive. God blesses us as He desires. If He chooses to bless us through a sermon on Sunday, then praise Him for the blessing. In this way we are the recipients of God’s love. However, as God’s people we must be active in our worship of the Creator.

Remember our example of the sponge? A sponge absorbs water much like a believer can absorb from God, from His word and from His teachers. But a sponge doesn’t give the water back unless it’s squeezed. Our heavenly Father doesn’t want to squeeze us for us to serve and worship to Him — but He may! So, let’s be sure we revere our God actively in our own lives and when we gather together.

In part two of this series, we will continue to look at Biblical perspectives on worship. This series won’t be contiguous articles, but probably feel more like different people in a room talking about worship. There is much to discuss and many opinions on just what worship really is. Our hope is to find our answers in His word and see what He tells us about worship there.