Growing up, I thought that worship only happens every Sunday at church. But I learned that Christians must live every day in worship as it is their way of life. God designed us to worship. With the grandeur of the omnipotent and omnipresent God, our hearts naturally speaks His goodness. The manifestation of our adoration to our loving Father is reflected by our constant worship. Our joy is also made complete whenever we commune with the Father as He reveals Himself through worship.
But a Christian may wonder why there are things that seem to prevent us from worshiping God in spirit and in truth. To begin with, we cannot have a quality and deep conversation with God if we do not have relationship with Him. We cannot fully grasp the act of genuine worship without knowing who He is. Only when we truly have Jesus in our lives, will His revelations and blessings follow in worship. And, we became very grateful that the only response we can give Him is a humble praise and worship.
There are times we neglect to do our discipline of worship. Our hearts that naturally worship are hardened by sins that gratify the flesh. We became too busy and we eventually forgot our first love and become so consumed by the worldly pleasures – building a wall and a gap between us and our Holy God. We have to be in constant reminder that “The gratification of the flesh and the fullness of the Spirit do not go hand in hand” (R.A. Torrey).
Distractions can also prevent us from worshiping God. These can be trials and worries or desires to gather earthly wealth that divert us from our devotion (Mark 4:18-19). The focus of our priority became a person, a career or even a certain situation in our lives. We turned away from the true object of our worship – the God who is bigger than any of our problems and our great provider.
Our adoration to God is demonstrated on how we relate to others. It is the sum of all His commandments – to Love God and to love others. If we want to commune with Him with a pure heart, we have to repent for the things that caused bruised relationships. A heart that worships knows how to reconcile and forgive (Ephesians 4:31-32). A genuine worshiper knows how to live peacefully with others.
Worship therefore is an everyday discipline, as we pour out our life of gratitude to the One who saves us. We worship Him in our great victories and worship Him all the more even in our deepest valleys of life. In every season let us worship the Lord with gladness. It has to be evident in our daily walks of life, in our decisions, choices, actions and in our relationship towards others. It is more than a song or lifting of hands that we usually do every weekend in our worship services. Genuine worship comes with a constant desire to be holy and obedient to God, a hunger to be in the presence of God.
