Worship as an Expression of Faith

Worship is about homage. It is the respect or regard paid to that which has power over one's life. Not everyone would acknowledge belief in the supernatural, but I think everyone worships something. Everyone give props to that which they see as having the power to affect their lives for good. If one truly believes in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, worshipping him is just part of that package.

"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."         John 4:24  NASB

Worship, really, is an expression of faith.

At its heart, it is a reach, a stretch, wherein a person of conviction dares to seek and see God as he is. God is breath (spirit) and so he is beyond the physicality of this world and all that's in it. His essence is the essence of the soul, of personhood--self-awareness, consciousness, purposefulness. Therefore, that seeking which is worship must engage those same qualities within the seeker. That which is spirit must be worshipped in spirit.

Worship cannot be circumscribed by the merely physical nor the superficial.

Historically, Christian worship has fallen short in both regards. Arrangements of "furniture," postures of bodies, and recitations and intonations done virtually without thought have very little to do with worship. The contemporary fixation with worship as entertainment or a perfunctory preliminary is no better, maybe even worse. The very essence of our spiritual being must be engaged in seeking and revering God, or all we've done is gone through some empty motions.

The very essence of who we are as persons must bow before the very presence of the person of God in order to worship.

Worship is, literally, "kissing towards" the object of reverence, which by use referred to bowing or prostration before the worshipped; that is, doing obeisance or acknowledging superiority. So, at its heart, worship is about surrender. If we have not come to a point of surrender to God, deep in our souls, we have not worshipped. Worship, such as this, is not a duty that can be done from a distance, it can only be accomplished "up close and personal."

Worship must be sincere.

There's no place for illusion in worship. Often the reference to truth in John 4:24 is misinterpreted to refer to fact and logic (i.e., knowledge), as if true worship engages both emotion and intellect. Certainly, heart and mind are part of what makes a human essentially human, but the reference to truth in this case has more to do with integrity than it does to knowledge. Possessing a theologically accomplished mind doesn't qualify one as a worshipper to any degree whatsoever, whereas honestly bowing down does.

Though our publications and practices would seem to suggest it, it has not been left up to us to fashion what worship of God could or should be. Oh, people can do that sort of thing, but they shouldn't expect the result would be considered worship by God. Jesus has told us, clearly, what God is looking for in worship, and what worship of God must be. Worship is an expression of faith, it must come from the essence of what we are as people, it must express surrender to God's authority over us, and it must be unfeigned.

If what you call worship isn't accomplishing this, it's not worship.

We Get One Shot

Here's something fun from the What You Ought to Know webshow called Time Travelling the Multiverse for all you Star Trek fans (yes, I'm ashamed to admit I'm one of you). [HT: Uncommon Descent]

Didn't think there'd be a spiritual application? You'd be wrong...

For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9: 24-28 NIV

Be Like Jesus

Distractions are some of our greatest enemies. They do not confront us with malice frontally, their blows, if they land at all, are only glancing. They don’t have to be dangerous or even lethal-- a butterfly on the windshield wiper can be just as distracting to our drive as a bee in the car. Like the old saw which says that a man may be the head of the family, but the wife is the neck, so distractions seek to turn our attention from where we were going.

The Bible warns us about distractions. Most of them are not intrinsically evil, but some of them are. A family will be a distraction, it's unavoidable, and not evil in the least (quite the opposite in fact). An unrelenting drive for "success" and status is distracting, particularly from trying to achieve our point in being here, and is evil at the core. Oddly, benign or evil distractions can stop ministry in its tracks.

Multiple choice exams, in order to add a degree of difficulty, often instruct their takers to choose, not the answer, but the best answer. A response can be wrong, not because it isn't true, but because it isn't full. When tolerances are high, quality control is a cinch: when the fit is tight, we have to be more choosy. I wonder how much of what we teach and practice in the church settles for something in the ballpark, but actually misses being in the game? The church at Ephesus certainly has some lessons to teach us in this regard.

Even the litany of discussions about the church seems somewhat distracting to me. So many are writing and reading about, mostly, what has already been said by someone at some time. Mention anything to a brother or sister today and you're likely to hear, "have you read so and so's book/article/blog about ..." So much information, so many concerns, too many choices, urgencies everywhere, the flesh in the midst of it all, excuses overflowing. So much effort in planning and prospecting and trying to get ahead.

Can it be that hard to just be like Jesus? 

Maybe it's time to just do that!