O to sing of Your glory, to declare Your wonders and to proclaim Your greatness – these are the desires of my heart. Dear God, give grace to your servant that I might worship You acceptably and glorify You earnestly.
There is no single issue that has more habitually distressed my soul and vexed my mind than worship. I of course am not speaking of worship itself, but on how it is regularly practiced. We could spend hours debating preferences in styles, instruments and decibel levels but those are not what I have in mind here. I’m speaking of the actual worship itself, if you can call it that and remain true to the meaning of the word. The dictionary defines worship as: “reverent honor directed towards God.” I would only add the words “adoration” and “awe” to that description. Although those words are sometimes sung, I am left wondering how often they are genuinely felt or understood.
“This people draws near with their words and honors Me with their lips, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” (Isa. 29:13)
For one to truly worship with awe, adoration and reverence one must first identify God as worthy of those things. Let me put it this way – how many people do you truly think are in awe of God? How many sincerely adore Him? Now imagine how few actually revere Him. You see, it doesn’t really matter how stirring a song is, or how strongly it tugs on your emotions. The question is do you genuinely elevate God within your heart and sing forth from the overflow? This is a tough question that I urge you not to answer too quickly. Many people sing from an emotional overflow, but it is because the songs they are singing have more to do with them, than with God. Listen to the lyrics of most current worship and you will hear “we” and “us” are mentioned at least as often as God – most times “we” are mentioned even more than God Himself! Surely it is not wrong to praise God for what He has done on our behalf; I encourage this thankfulness wholeheartedly. But I doubt many would be just as satisfied with worship that simply declared the wonder and greatness of God alone, for His own sake. Who would agree with the psalmist, “I have seen You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.” (Ps. 63:2-3)
Jesus tells us, “those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (Jn. 4:24) O how far short of this we fall. Something is missing in our modern worship. It is a twofold issue. First we must recognize the lack of “truth” being proclaimed in many cases. Some songs simply have bad theology that is not fit for worms to sing. A.W. Tozer says it this way: “Our perception of God determines our worship.” In essence, if you are thinking wrongly about God, your worship will suffer. Secondly, I believe the most glaring item that is absent among us is the “spirit” of worship. I am not referring to the Holy Spirit, although He is undoubtedly greatly grieved by much of our so-called worship. What we are aiming at here is the soul of worship, that which drives it? The source of our poor worship is our poor view of God. Our poor view of God, leaves us with weak and uninspired worship. What is most needed in our day is a fresh and raw glimpse of the glory of God; one that shoves us to the floor and buries our faces in the carpet. We need a reminder of just how glorious God is. O how the dull vibrations of disinterested people must grate on the ears of God. If we could just see God for who He is, O we would be undone. We would bask in His goodness and shout of all that makes Him great!
No, there is no awe in much of our worship. There is no reverence with trembling (Ps. 2:11). There is little adoration. These are missing because we have lost sight of He who is the object of our worship. God is not interested in the empty declarations of half-hearted puppets. God desires men and women of contrite hearts, who are enthralled with who He is, to honor Him with songs and lives of praise. If we took very seriously the work of peering deeply into the nature of God, I believe our worship would take on a completely different form. Let us then gaze intently so that our worship will be truly pleasing to Him.
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