Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:33 PM CDT
CLERGY VIEWS: Give God the worship He deserves every day
BY BRAD BROWN, Associate Pastor & Worship Leader, Central Community Church, Mattoon
Beep, beep, beep… It’s the sound of your alarm clock at 5 in the morning.
You lazily hit the snooze button, almost knocking the clock off of your night stand. You try to squeeze in that extra nine minutes of sleep. Why should you get out of bed any earlier than you have to?
You sigh as the alarm clock goes off the second time.
Would it be very Christian-like to throw it against the wall?
You decide it must be time to get up!
The sheets slowly pull back as your legs swing over the edge of the bed. Finally, both feet are flat on the floor as you sleepily walk toward the bathroom to get ready, trying to avoid stubbing your toes.
You soon hurry into the kitchen and tuck a granola bar in your pocket for breakfast on the road; grab a cup of coffee on your way out. The car pulls out of the driveway, it seems to know the way, as you try to drive and enjoy your breakfast at the same time.
You brush off the granola crumbs that are scattered on your shirt, as you make it to work —just on schedule.
This is just the beginning of your busy day…
Many people can relate to this scenario. We get so busy, with so much to do — and seemingly so little time to get it all done.
As Christians, do we leave enough time in our hectic schedule to daily give God the worship he deserves?
Oftentimes, we mistake worship for something we only set aside to do on Sundays, during our church services.
The Bible doesn’t give a formal definition of worship. But perhaps we can start by seeing what various words for worship mean.
The English word “worship” comes from two Old English words: “weorth,” which means “worth,” and “scipe” or “ship,” which means something like “shape” or “quality.”
We can see the Old English word — “ship” in modern words like friendship and sportsmanship — that’s the quality of being a friend, or the quality of being a good sport.
So “worth-ship” is the quality of having worth or of being worthy. When we worship, we are saying that God has worth, that He is worthy. Or to put it in biblical terms, we praise God.
We speak, or sing, about how good and powerful God is.
As we know, music plays a vital role in worship.
Psalms 150:3-6 reads, “Praise him with the sound of the trumpet; praise him with the psaltery and harp; praise him with the timbrel and dance; praise him with stringed instruments and organs; praise him upon the loud cymbals; praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
Music is something that is not only encouraged for worship in the Bible, but it is commanded. It is a very valuable tool for leading people into worship. But worship music alone should never be thought of as the entirety of worship.
Worship is to be an expression of adoration and praise toward God that comes out from our entire lives, not just our songs.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship,” (Romans 12:1 NIV).
We are to live our lives for the glory of God — take time to pray, read our Bible, and listen for His voice.
This is true worship.
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HisChild wrote on May 16, 2009 9:58 AM:
This is true worship.
:-) Thank You Mr. Brown! :-)
To us, Sundays are just for reinforcement.
Listening to His Voice and recognizing God in all we do with thankfulness in our hearts is 24/7. "