TRUE WORSHIP

 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him (John 4:23).

Worship is the antidote for our becoming dull to the beauty, majesty and splendor of our God. It’s an invitation to tremble again. John Piper writes, “When the Son (God) is displaced, everything flies apart. The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attracting place at the center.”

The Father seeks true worshipers. What is true worship? There is worship that God hates; not all that passes for worship is pleasing to God (Amos 5:21-24). True worship requires engagement. Just attending a worship service doesn’t make you a worshiper.  “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mt. 15.8). 

You may attend church, but unless Jesus is your joy, the center of your life, you will not engage with passion. True worship requires truth. Contrary to today’s ethos — “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere” — true worship requires submitting heart and mind to what God has said.

True worship requires humility. Jesus said two men went up to the temple to pray and the one who went home justified is the one who humbly begged for mercy as a big sinner. Too many Americans go to church to hear the pastor castigate the “big sinners,” the sexually immoral; but true worshipers know they have no righteousness of their own. True worshipers come to God as the fearful, lustful, dishonest, selfish, greedy people we are. True worship is the highest priority of the Christ-follower. As the deer pants for water, so we thirst for the living God as a matter of life and death.

Prayer:
Father, for your glory, by your Holy Spirit, make ma a true worshiper.