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WORSHIP IS WORTH IT

Upon leaving the church building one Sunday morning after a service, a certain man said to the Pastor, “I really didn’t enjoy worship today.” The Pastor replied, “That’s OK. We weren’t worshipping you.”

Worship, true worship, is not measured by the number of goosebumps you get during the service. It’s not in any visceral enjoyment of melodies or lyrics in the songs sung.  Both enjoyment of music and an occasional sense or thrill are not opposed to worship, they just are the focus, not the point.

Worshipping God resets the lives of worshippers, someone once said. We live in a world whose system does all it can to get us absorbed with self, as if by being laser-focused on how we feel, helps us discover the meaning and purpose of the life we must live out. We did not create ourselves. We did not call our lives into being. Had that been the case, then we would, innately, have a sense of why we called ourselves into being in the first place.

God alone in the One who has called into being every human that has been conceived. We can only come to know the meaning of our lives from the One who called us into being. We all have a purpose, and the Lord God wants us to know the meaning encased in our being. That incredible revelation gets unfolded and made real to us only when our relationship with God is restored. Sharing in Adam’s fallen nature, all of us are born alienated from God. That alienation reveals itself more tangibly as we grow older.

If you believe in the “innate goodness” of humanity, all you need to do is to observe a room full of two-year-old toddlers with a limited number of toys to interact with. “Might makes right,” selfishness, victimhood, impatience, anger, fear, even violence become abundantly clear. Those things become more sophisticated as we grow older and “wiser” in the ways of the world. However, none of those responses bring us closer to wholeness, peace or understanding the meaning of our lives.

For the follower of Jesus Christ, worship: the setting our hearts, minds, wills, and emotions…even our bodies…on the Lord God who called us into being, does a reset for us. Fixing our eyes on the Lord God and His Word, the Holy Spirit confirms the identity He has given to us. Reminded of God’s eternal Truth, His everlasting faithfulness to all He has promised. We remember that God has revealed Himself to us fully in Jesus Christ, and that does something deep within us. It increases our submission, our worship, our gratitude more and more for Who God is and what He has done for humanity.

In worship, we can have our eyes opened wider to see our salvation in Christ Jesus crucified. We are reminded of God’s call on us, as we follow Jesus, to live in the Power of His resurrection by the Holy Spirit so that others may see and experience that God can redeem anyone. God made Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin so that in Him we might be made to be the righteousness of God.

By grace through faith, God brings us out of eternal death into eternal life. Our sin, not a part, but the whole has been nailed to the cross and we bear it no more. THAT is worthy of giving thanks, being grateful, desiring to have all we are lived out in submission to the One Who is now Life within us.

To be reminded that God has come and made His home, His permanent residence in us, that our bodies are now temples of the Holy Spirit, that we are no longer our own but are fully alive in Christ Jesus, is the foundation for worship. In worship, we acknowledge God’s eternal worth. He alone is trustworthy, and all His promises have been confirmed as true and sure in Jesus Christ.  In our worship of the Living God, we remember that He does not change, His mercy is everlasting, He alone can forgive and wash away sin, He alone renews, restores, and transforms, saving to the uttermost all who will believe Him. Believing Him carries with it the surrender of one’s whole life.

It is the Creator of all things Who is the Redeemer of all who will but believe Him and surrender to Him all we are. He alone is the Reconciler to restore us to Himself. He is the Initiator and has done all that must be done, things we have no way of comprehending fully. He has conquered death, sin, hell, and the grave. We need no longer be slaves to fear, unforgiveness, arrogance, shame, jealousy, lust, anger, enmity, and all other sins that have afflicted humanity since the fall of Adam and Eve.

God is worthy of worship, praise, obedience, and faith because He alone can save and has opened THE WAY for all humanity to enter in and receive His salvation, receiving a new birth into a new life.

Worship resets the lives of worshippers.

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