Entering Into Worship

When you walk through the doors of a church, what are you proceeding in to do? As I reflect on my thoughts as I have grown and matured in my walk with God and engagement in his Church, I recall often thinking that true worship was the sense of personal fulfillment and reassurance in my relationship with God that one feels in singing glorious hymns and being moved and stirred by the sermon. I think it is for the most part the paradigm that I operated out of for the majority of my life. Another way to put it would be that I believed the purpose of going to worship was to receive something from the alter - to be "refilled to be able to face the rest of the week."

There have been innumerable occasions where all I wanted to do was make it through till Sunday, so that I could see my friends, could sing the songs that enliven my heart, and hear the Word preached that invigorates my spirit. This is not a bad thing by a long shot. However, over the last few months, I have begun to see that while it is a good thing, it is neither the whole thing nor the best thing. The issue lies in that this perspective on worship leaves the worshiper to come in merely a passive manor. This is good in that in everything, we acknowledge God to be the one who moves us and directs us, who fills us and completes us, and even who grows us and matures us. But, acting as a passive receptacle, while important in the act of worship, is only the secondary reason I walk through the doors on a Sunday morning.

The primary reason for man to worship is to BRING something to the alter. The only thing that separates us from the rest of creation is our ability to turn our experiences around into praise. As Westminster (via Piper's interpretation) likes to put it, our chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. That said, we go to church in order to bring our praise to him! We sing our songs so that we might express the passions of our heart, directing the heart liberating words to the Lord who made us and set us in his story! We sit and listen to his Word preached so that first of all we might present to him our hearts humbled and bowed in deference to his will. It is then, and only then, that we are able to act as receptacles. Entering into true worship is the act of bringing to God our hearts and lives humbled to his will, praising his glorious character, and then standing ready to further engage his creation!

Drew