23 Feb TRUE WORSHIP 1

What Is True Worship?

According to Your Dictionary, Worship is defined as reverence or devotion for a deity; religious homage or veneration.
It also means to adore, be devoted to, to honour, a deity.
The primary Hebrew word for worship   Shachah   means “to depress, i.e. prostrate, bow down, crouch, fall down, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship.”

Worshiping Jehovah, our heavenly Father, means setting Him as the true object of our worship. Seeing and believing Him as the only true and living God.Worship is not just singing in praise during a church service or during prayer time. It is not limited to outward postures or speaking words of praise. It goes beyond all of these.
Our decisions, attitudes, emotions, our being and soul are involved in worship to God. We must worship God out of a sense of deep respect for Him acknowledging Him as God and completely obeying His word.

Some verses of scripture that tell us how to worship God is found in the book of John:
Jesus said to her, Woman, believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither [merely] in this mountain nor [merely] in Jerusalem.  You [Samaritans] do not know what you are worshiping [you worship what you do not comprehend]. We do know what we are worshiping [we worship what we have knowledge of and understand], for [after all] salvation comes from [among] the Jews.  A time will come, however, indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers. God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality).
JOHN 4:21-25 AMP

We can note the following from the above scriptures that:

1. Worship to God is not merely tied to a certain place. V 21

Everyone in Israel must always go to the temple in Jerusalem to worship. But Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that it was no longer going to be so.

Wherever we are, we can worship God in a manner that would be pleasing to Him. So we must know that our worship is more of a lifestyle than religious routines that is most times carried out without God’s interest because our life styles do not reflect our profession.

2. In order to worship God acceptably, we must get to know Him. V 22

The more we know God the better our worship to Him gets. The Bible says we are created to please God. How can you please one whom you do not know? How can you even attempt it when you do not know what He likes and does not?

Our desire should then be to seek God until He reveals Himself to us. A legendary gospel singer [Bob Fitts], sang a song that has become my daily cry and desire, below are the words of the song:

To keep your lovely face
Ever before my eyes
This is my prayer
Make it my strong desire
That in my secret heart
No other love competes
No rival thrown survives
And I’ll serve only You

To genuinely worship God, Jesus infers that we must know Him. Click To Tweet

• Until we know Him we will not know how He wants us to worship Him.
  Worship unto God means making Him our priority. He is not competing or contesting with anything or anyone in our hearts and lives.
• We can worship God acceptably only to the degree of the revelation we have of Him. If He revealed Himself to Moses, Abraham, King David, Mary, Apostle Paul and the endless list, then it is His will that we seek a revelation Him.

  If we seek Him we will find Him if we search for Him with all our hearts.  Jeremiah 29:13

  And when we find Him, it makes all the difference in our walk with Him and our worship of Him. We know what He wants as we gaze into His eyes. He can instruct us just by that eye contact.

  No wonder The Apostle Paul declares that he counts everything as loss so that he may know Him. Consider Philippians 3:7-11

  So, let us pursue after Christ, that we may know Him.

  Find the part two of this article Here