WOMEN OF WONDER - WOW AT FPC 
Created For Worship - September 2010
WOW! Women Of Wonder Monthly Devotional
Webster’s dictionary defines worship as “intense love or admiration.” Given that definition I think we could come up with a lot of things that people choose to worship. . .money, cars, clothes, friends, celebrities, even ourselves. Worship is the fundamental drive of human life. All people worship something. This urge to worship is so universal that if we are not worshipping the true God, we worship a god that we make up for ourselves.
God has planted the desire to worship in His creation, within us.
Scientists have learned that worship is a universal urge, hard-wired by God into the very fiber of our being—an inbuilt need to connect with God. If we fail to worship God, we always find a substitute, even if it ends up being ourselves.
“For one thing, God is a concept that appears in human cultures all over the globe, regardless of how geographically isolated they are. When tribes living in remote areas come up with a concept of God as readily as nations living shoulder to shoulder, it's a fairly strong indication that the idea is preloaded in the genome rather than picked up on the fly. If that's the case, it's an equally strong indication that there are very good reasons it's there.” Time Magazine 10/04 re: The God Gene by Dean Hammer.
For believers God then fills that internal urge for worship with the Holy Spirit; God Himself alive inside every believer. The reason God made us with this desire is that He desires worshipers.
Jesus said, “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.“ John 4:23-24 (The Message)
God intended worship to be a lifestyle. And it must be in truth. It must be honest, not a put-on. It is not something you do with your body while your mind is somewhere else. Worship is what you mean with all your heart. Notice there is nothing limiting about our worship. Nowhere does the scripture tell us worship is done on a given day or in a given way. From God’s perspective there are only two kinds of worship, there is true worship and there is false. True worship is to have intense love for and to honor God who is truly worthy; to love and honor Him with every part of our lives, every day of our lives. False worship would be to have an intense love for and to assign worth to something that is not worthy.
Worship isn’t for our benefit. We worship for God’s benefit. When we worship our goals should be to bring pleasure to God, not ourselves. Realizing who God is and what He’s done for us, this is worship. God made us to recognize Him because He loves us and wants our attention. AND HE DESERVES IT.
There are three elements that are essential to understand
if we desire to truly worship God
First, we must honor and praise God. “Give to the Lord the glory He deserves! Bring your offering and come to worship Him.” Psalm 96:8 We live and breathe, wake up each morning and go about our day because of God. We are saved for eternal living because God wants us in heaven with Him. The offering we can bring to worship Him is our lives, our thankfulness, and our praise. Lifting prayers of thanks, singing songs of praise, living a life that glorifies Him, this is an essential part of worship.
The second element worship must contain is a time of entering into the life of another. Worship must have a sense of belonging, of caring and of loving one another. Real worship must include the body of Christ, other believers. When believers join to worship God they begin to care about each other. “But anyone who does not love does not know God-for God is love.” 1 John 4:8 God made us to express our love for Him by showing concern for one another. In Matthew 25 Jesus teaches about the events that will occur when He returns again to earth. Jesus will sit on a glorious throne and gather before Him all the nations and He will separate them into groups of “sheep” and “goats.” Sheep represent the true believers and goats those who appeared to be believers but were not real. How does He know who is who? The test is what they did or did not do for each other. And the King will tell them, “I assure you when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.” Matthew 25:40 By loving and helping others we worship God. That is a mark of a true believer. Serving one another should be a part of our daily worship; it is recognition of who we are together in the body of Christ.
The third element to worship is the preparation it provides us to go out and serve the needs of the world. In Isaiah 6 Isaiah sees the greatness and glory of God, “He was sitting on a lofty throne and the train of His robe filled the Temple.” The angels bow before Him calling out “holy, holy, holy” Isaiah falls to the ground and cries out that he is unworthy to even be in God’s presence. God then sends an angel who uses a pair of tongs to touch a burning coal to Isaiah’s mouth and then declares Isaiah forgiven with all guilt removed. After that Isaiah says “Lord here I am. Send me!” That is what worship should do for us. Worship should make us ready to say, “Lord here I am, send me.” “Here is a need in my workplace, in my community, in my nation, in this world. Here are people who are hurting and need help. Here I am. Send me!”
The Message paraphrase says, “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going to school, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering. Romans 12:1 If you ever get confused about worship, just remember that worship isn’t part of your life, it is your life. Don’t wait until Sunday morning to worship, worship everyday. All of your words, thoughts, and actions should be thought of as something you are doing for God to please Him.
And the more we focus on who God is and what He has done for us the more we will understand that worship is falling in love with God. Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.
Humans are the ultimate and final expression of God’s glory; we are the ones who bear His image. We show the world how beautiful and worthy of worship our God is. God created all things. . . . especially us, to worship Him. |
