The Ingredients of Worship

By: Robert McGowens

Worship is not the slow song that the choir sings. Worship is not the amount of money you give in the offering. Worship is not the participation in various ministries. Yes, these may be acts or expressions of worship, but they do not define what true worship really is. There are numerous definitions for the word worship. One captures the priority we should give to worship, as a spiritual discipline. Worship is to honor with extravagant love, and extreme submission. (WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY, 1828) Secondly, true worship, in other words, is defined by the priority we place on who God is in our lives and where God is on our list of priorities. True worship is a matter of the heart expressed through a lifestyle of holiness. Thus, if your lifestyle does not express the beauty of holiness through an extravagant or exaggerated love for God, and you do not live in extreme or excessive submission to God, then I invite you to make worship a non-negotiable priority in your life. We worship God because he is God. Period. Our extravagant love and extreme submission to the Holy One flows out of the reality that God loved us first. It is highly appropriate to thank God for all the things he has done for us. However, true worship is shallow if it is solely an acknowledgement of God's wealth. Psalm 96:5-6 says, "For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary." In other words, our worship must be toward the one who is worthy simply because of his identity as the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One, and not just because God is wealthy and able to meet our needs and answer our prayers. We must focus our practice of worship on the worthiness of God and not his wealth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1642547344
• ISBN13: 9781642547344
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: BookPatch LLC, The