The Worth of Worship

When most people think of worship they limit it to the mellow song or two that is sang in praise to God. And while that is a part of worship, worship entails so much more. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, worship is the essence of our relationship with God. True worship goes beyond just singing and praising the Lord and extends to every aspect of our lives.

With the world getting darker and more perverse by the moment, God is truly seeking those people who dedicate themselves to Him fully and worship Him in spirit and in truth.  (John 4:23, 24.) He is looking to make an even greater distinction between the lives of the true worshippers and those who refuse to honor Him as God.

Why does God want to do this? 2 Chronicles 16:9 says that God is seeking out that person whose heart is perfect or dedicated to Him, SO THAT He can show Himself strong in their behalf. In other words, God is looking for true worshippers so that He can bless them!

As a worshipper of God, your end is a world of blessing.  A place, indeed, where you will discover the great worth of worship.

An Upclose Look

In order to ensure that we are making the connection with God as true worshippers, let's take a closer look at what worship really is. Worshipping God requires a heart and life of humility. It represents a bowing down, kneeling down and obeisance to God in reverence to Him, as you would do in homage to someone, signifying that God is supreme in your life.  However, it doesn't stop there. True worship engages every aspect of yourself and your life--spirit, soul, and body. It literally represents bringing one's total self and all one has to God and before God.

As I pointed out earlier, worship is much more than just singing and praising, although that is an important aspect of worship. To be sure, the worship that God is looking for according to John 4 is the worship in which you give all you are to Him, so that He in return can give all He is to you. Our sincere worship of God invites Him into every aspect of our lives—our thoughts, our hearts, our words, our money and possessions, our relationships, indeed our very selves. That is the spirit of our worship towards God.

But God wants even more. He wants worship in spirit and in truth. And so by its very nature, worship requires that we become intimately acquainted with God through His written Word.

According to John 17:17, God's Word is truth, so our worship can only be complete as we faithfully and humbly approach God's Word and then follow through with the necessary  obedience.  Once you combine the heart devotion and humility with the practice of consistent obedience to the Word, you have entered into the ranks of the true worshippers. And for such, the Father seeks after.

In the Spotlight

One of the benefits of worshipping the Lord is that worship puts the spotlight on you! To be clear, worship causes God to pay attention to you and to your needs.  A true worshipper will never go unnoticed by God.

"Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel. Then she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour" (Matt. 15:21-28).

In this passage of Scripture, we see a woman who by Jewish law had no right to the healing power of God. Yet, she put aside everything to get Jesus to focus on her and her urgent need. She put aside the temptation to be offended at Jesus and the disciples when they ignored her initial plea.  She put aside whether or not he had the right pedigree, as a Canaanite, to merit this blessing. And she worshipped. She worshipped! 

In her dire strait, she brought her total self to God and before God and trusted in His goodness and unfailing love. She understood the worth of worship. And because of her sincere and heartfelt worship, Jesus turned His attention to her in order to give her what she needed.  Similarly, as we learn to put everything else aside and develop in the lifestyle of worshipping the Lord with all we have and all we are, His focus will remain on us and our needs will be fulfilled.

Answers Awaiting

Another great benefit of worshipping God is that it causes wisdom to enter your life and circumstances. Wisdom is necessary for life. In fact, wisdom enables you to know what to do when, in and of yourself, you don't know what to do. Worship opens the door to this wisdom in your life.

"It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon  and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, And said...O our God, wilt thou not judge them?  for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us: neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee…And Jeshoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD worshipping the LORD. And when they began to sing and to praise [as directed by the LORD], the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir which were come against Judah; and they were smitten" (2 Chron. 20:1,3,5,6,12,18,22).

In the face of impending doom and disaster, the people of God didn't begin murmuring and complaining about how bad things were.  They didn't waste time trying to figure out the answer for themselves.  Instead, they sought the Lord; they went after him in prayer and fasting-and worship! They understood the worth of worship. And so even though they started off in a place of uncertainty and ignorance about how to deal with their enemies, they ended up with the answers they needed. And those answers brought them victory over their enemies!

The place of victory is the place of worship. The place of light is the place of worship. We must be willing to throw ourselves and our lives over on God so that He can direct our paths through His wisdom and counsel and thereby lead us to our places of victory in Him.

Blessings to Go

Obedience is the highest form of worship.  And when we obey the Lord, regardless of what He requires from us, we are sure to walk away with the blessings of God.  Perhaps no one can attest to this more than Abraham, our father of faith. It was this same Abraham to which God promised a son long after he and his wife had passed the age of child bearing.  In God's faithfulness, He did give Abraham his promised son, Isaac. And now, God was making a request for Abraham's most precious treasure, that son.

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of And Abraham rose up early in the morning,  and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son…and went unto the place of which God had told him.  And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you" (Genesis 22:1- 3, 5).

In what had to be one of the hardest tests of Abraham's life, he responded in obedience to the Lord. He put all that he was and all that he had (Isaac) before the Lord to do as He would. But Abraham's bold obedience to God did not go unnoticed or unrewarded.  Even as he was about to slay his only son, the angel of the Lord spoke to him and declared:

"…lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou has not withheld thy son, thine only son from me" (v. 12).

In that moment, Abraham's heart was totally opened before the Lord and through his act of obedience, the Lord saw that He was priority in Abraham's life above everything and everyone else. He saw the heart of a worshipper. And because of that, Abraham walked away with the blessing of his beloved son and the blessing of multiplication!  God promised to multiply his beloved son into many sons! He also promised that his seed would be victorious and that through his seed all nations of the earth would be blessed. And it was all because he obeyed the voice of the Lord. He understood that even in a hard situation there is great worth in worship.