What does worship mean to you? For many in Western churches today, that word tends to have various meanings. We all take it to mean what we do on Sunday mornings. Maybe your church is like ours and we spend time singing, then we hear a message from the Bible with the Pastor teaching us how that text applies to us today. We pray, and then we go home, and we say that we have been to worship. But what if worship was not an event? What if what we do on Sunday is a small picture of something else?
Throughout the Bible, there is a theme of worship. In the Old Testament, we see examples of worship that were accepted and examples of worship that were not accepted. We can look at Cain and Abel. One’s sacrifi ce was blessed and the other was rejected. We find out later that Cain’s was rejected because of his heart. His heart was not in worship but on something else.
Later on, as the people of God are brought out of Egypt, God is giving Moses the laws about worship, and the people are down at the base of the mountain worshiping an idol. Even in that situation, their hearts were in the wrong place. They wanted a god they could see, one they could attribute their rescue to, yet the one true God that actually rescued them was talking with their leader. Their heart wanted to worship what it could see, not on faith. We could walk all through Scripture and find these examples. Over and over again, people worship with their hearts and not their faith. But that is the key, isn’t it? The heart can be deceptive, it can lead us astray. Worship begins in faith.
At Meadowbrook, we have been walking through the book of Malachi and looking at worship. The people he prophesied to had neglected worship and just were going through the motions and not giving their best. It affected everyone, even the priests. But we see in Chapter 3, that God calls them back. He calls them to return to worship, to him. When the question is asked, how do we return to you, the answer is return to worship. God actually calls them to return to giving their tithe.
I know I may have just lost a few of you, but before you stop reading hold on and look at what is going on here. In Chapter 3:7-12, God is calling them to start tithing again, because when we tithe, we are recognizing in a tangible way, where our blessings and resources come from. The tithe mentioned is actually not so much money but resources, crops. By returning a portion, the giver realizes that it is God who has blessed them, it is God who has given them a bountiful harvest. It is a sign of worship. So we see in this text a great picture of God’s grace and mercy. Instead of wiping t hem off t he face of t he earth, he calls them back to worship.
In 1999, Matt Redman wrote a song called, “The Heart of Worship.” In that song, he says, “I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required. You search much deeper within, through the way things appear, You’re looking into my heart. I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about you, it’s all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it, when it’s all about you, it’s all about you, Jesus.”
Worship is not a one-day event. It is a lifestyle. It is not something we go to once a week, but rather it is who we are. When worship is limited to only a once-a-week expression, we give God our leftovers; we do not give God our best. Yet, when it is our lifestyle, then we remember daily who he is, and what he has done. We remember, and it becomes ingrained in who we are, it is how we are known.
So to our original question, what does worship mean to you? For me, it means everything. Everything I say, everything I do, all of who I am, is worship. At least, that is my desire. I do not always meet that goal, but it is my daily goal. What is it to you? Do you need to come back to the heart of worship? I pray you do come back. I pray you return to genuine, faith-filled worship.
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