What do you think of when you hear the word: Worship?

Many of us quickly think of the time in church where we sing “worship” songs, or times where the Bible says that people "fell down" and "worshiped" God. But this is such a small view of worship. Worship is meant to be an all-encompassing lifestyle not only an action done before an altar.

The dictionary’s first definition of worship is: “The acts or rites that make up a formal expression of reverence for a deity.” The Bible clearly teaches that people can give an “expression of reverence” to God in formal settings such as church, but also in every moment of our informal and normal lives. In fact, God often rebuked people in the Bible who had “expressions of reverence” formally, but did not live out their belief in God in their everyday life.

There will be 5 followup posts to this one that will touch on a different areas of life and how we can worship God in them, but as a guideline to live by, we need to ask ourselves:

Am I expressing reverence to God in my daily life?

Everything comes back to that question. Are my actions, speech, thoughts, dreams, and hopes all reflecting the truth that God is real, and that He is truly God, not me? The litmus test for whether our lives are worshipful to God is if we would continue to do, say, and think everything we just the same if God Himself was right beside us. If not, we need to repent and ask God to grow our worship for Him in our daily lives.

I hope this, and the subsequent posts on worship will be both convicting, and freeing. That you will have a sense of lack in your current worship, but that you will realize the grace and freedom in Jesus to be able to worship God in every area of life with joy. Worshiping God is not putting on the bondage of boring, instead, it is life giving because it is truly what each of us was designed by God to do.

Here are links to the followup posts on this subject: