Commentary6

Most of us have thought of "worship" as something that we do at church, at a prayer meeting or any gathering of believers lifting up and exalting the Lord through song or hearing the word of God. I want to take this opportunity to bring us to a clearer understanding of God's mind when we think about worship, to see it in it's entirety, effecting our whole lives.

Jesus broke all the traditional molds about the how and why of worship as He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4: 21-24:

²¹Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

²²Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

²³But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

²⁴God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

He takes us out of the need for a time and a place and presents worship as something that we can and should do anywhere and at anytime. Even in our daily tasks we are commanded to do everything as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23), to give ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service of worship (Romans 12:1). We are told, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:2). The Lord desires and calls us to a walk of worship that is expressed in our living in Him, everyday, all the time.

As one reads through the major prophets of the Old Testament we see that God is jealous (a : intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b : disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness; Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) when it comes to our relationship to him and even more so concerning who or what we worship in our everyday lives. He does not desire to share the worship of His people with anyone or anything else (Exodus 34:12-17), but He must be preeminent or first in every part of our lives.

Throughout history, God has given us a clear picture of what He expects of us as His people and as those who belong to Him. From the very beginnings of God's relationship with the people of Israel we see in Exodus 20:1-6:

God gave to Israel His commandments and His laws that were all inclusive making their very lives worship to Him and a witness to the nations of God's power and glory. This included not only the Law but rules and rituals for every detail of their lives that spoke of God's love for them. In return, He expected obedience in every point, not allowing for anything (gods, idols or attitudes) to come before Him. He in fact is a jealous God, intolerant of any other taking His place and intolerant of our unfaithfulness towards Him.

Even with this understanding, the Israelites continued to fall short in many areas, seeking after other gods, making idols, allowing the cultures and false teaching of other nations to infiltrate their own to create a mixture of religious paganism, worshiping on the high places, burning incense to other gods and even sacrificing their own children to these so called gods. The Scriptures describe this in several terms including spiritual adultery, rebelliousness and of course, idolatry.

This angered God and yet He loved His people so much He sent prophets calling them back to Him and warning them of impending judgment if they did not heed His call, always leaving an opening for repentance, wanting them to return once again to Him as their only Lord and God (Matthew 23:37). And He was also longsuffering towards His people sometimes waiting years in hope of His people turning their hearts once again to Him in obedience. Eventually, God could and would wait no longer and His only recourse was to judge His people and pour out His wrath upon them.

How does this relate to us as Christians, now that we walk in grace and not under the law? Would it surprise you to know that God is still jealous for His people and for our worship of Him? The events of the Old Testament were but shadows and patterns for us to see God, to know His heart and to understand His intent towards us who believe and walk as disciples of His Son.

When Jesus Christ revealed to his disciples who he really was, both Lord and God, this brought us to understand that our worship was to extend to the Son as well as the Father. He revealed His deity as he spoke with the man who was blind and had been healed by Him and was cast out from the presence of the Pharisees for giving his testimony in John 9:35-41:

He also gives us a deeper understanding of His deity as He stated, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am," in John 8:58. We see that He is God and that others worshiped Him as God and we are called to also worship both the Father and the Son.

I have written the above to lay a foundation for some of the problems that I see facing the Body of Christ today. Because God is jealous for His people and for their worship of Him, we must look closely at our relationship with Him and see if we are truly loving and worshiping Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We are called to seek Him, not His presence or an experience, but Him.

In Romans 12, we are called to present ourselves to Him as a living and holy sacrifice. Remember, God desires our worship and He desires us totally if we really belong to Him. He bought and paid for us with the death of His Son Jesus, and we are no longer our own, so we are commanded to glorify God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Again I point out that this is not just something that we do only on Sunday and Wednesday, but our daily walk with Him is to be an act of worship. We must be willing to pay the price to be His disciples, to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, which is an act of honoring and worshiping Him by our obedience to His word.

I remember, even as a babe in Christ, my desire to sit before Him as the Scriptures describe Mary doing while her sister, Martha was busy with the things she thought important. I used to take walks every night up a long lonely road, and sit and wait on the Lord, just enjoying Him. Just a simple devotion to my Lord and Savior, ministering to Him as He ministered to me, filling me with hope and joy. This worship became part of my life, my family, my work, my fellowship with other believers, but then......

Over time, I slowly began to allow other things to get in the way of this simple devotion, this simple life of worshiping Christ. Even "church" things and supposed spiritual experiences took the place that was due only to my God. My simple life became "complicated" with my attentions being given to many "important" things in life but the most important thing that I forgot and lost was the continuum of the simple worship of my Lord Jesus. These things had become idols, taking the place of God. I carried on in my walk as though I was in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, leading worship on Sunday and Wednesday nights, going to prayer meetings, living "a life" now replaced and separated from the one I needed the most, by my own actions. In reality, I was an empty shell, a hollow man living a lie without Him.

I am not in any way saying that God leaves and forsakes us. When we let anything or anyone replace God, we lose our simplicity and devotion to the one who must be preeminent, our all in all, Christ in us, the hope of glory. We end up worshiping everything except God and He is jealous for His people and for our worship of Him alone. I definitely do not want to experience His judgment in my life because I refuse to put Him first and live worshiping Him continually.

Have we allowed other things to usurp the glory that is due only to Him by giving place to anything or anyone other than God? And if we have, then we are guilty of spiritual adultery, rebelliousness and above all, idolatry. We may even be worshiping another Christ or another spirit as the Corinthians found themselves doing when false teachers and false apostles infiltrated their fellowship and twisted their understanding of the doctrines of Christ and preached another Christ. (Spiritual Adultery Bible Study Series)

We are so easily tempted to sample the things of the world and employ them in our walk with Jesus and these things become the idols that take the place of God. If we think that having these idols in our lives are an expression of worship, then who or what do our lives express?, certainly not Jesus Christ! Our lives then become complicated as each idol tries to take its place at the pinnacle of our thoughts replacing the simplicity we should have in Him.

Please take time to examine your relationship with Jesus and let Him reveal any and all of the idols that have stolen the affections that are rightfully His. If we try to worship Him without dealing with the things that have usurped His place in our lives than we are only fooling ourselves and our worship (our life) is profane, irreverent and contemptible. We are like the Pharisees in Matthew 15:8 which says, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." These idols are sin and sin will keep us from fellowship with Him and our hearts will become hardened, keeping us from moving into the very life God has for us. We must do everything possible to guard our hearts and minds to keep from being led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

God, in His grace and love for us, gives us many opportunities to return to Him. He desires after us, seeking us to fellowship with Him and He is jealous for His people and wants us to worship Him. In John 14:21, Jesus says, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." As our lives become an expression of worship to our God by our obedience to His word He will reveal Himself to us by His Holy Spirit, through His word.