Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. Its central reality is found “in spirit and truth.” It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit. Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the...
To ask the theological question is simply to ask, What does our worship say about God? or the corollary, What does God say to us about our worship? Surely, this is the toughest and most basic question to be asked, but curiously, it is often the last question we ask....
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship. To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Resentments cannot be held with the same tenacity when we enter...
Whatever else God calls us to do, we are called to worship, to do so together and to do so in the promised company of Jesus Christ. It is in worship that our lives are expressed before God and informed and converted by God’s Word. It is in worship, that through song,...
What we are individually, twenty-four hours a day, is more important than what happens in church once a week. The secret of acceptable worship lies in how we are at home, or at work, and when we are alone and nobody knows what we are doing. It lies in our total...
So, by faith let us put on both lenses [worshiping in Spirit and in Truth]. We should look at each passage of scripture and examine each service or song or ceremony with both lenses on. To get a true stereo image, an in-depth, full-dimensioned image, of how we...
True worship is expressed in biblical terms, methods and patterns. True worship is defined by the truth of God, not by the surrounding culture. The challenge of worshiping in the truth of the Kingdom while living in the culture of the world has faced every church in...
We do not always think of repentance as worship, but it can be much easier to sing a rousing hymn than to turn away from our favorite sin. A sinful act involves worship of the wrong kind, submitting ourselves at that moment to serve the appetites of our pride or lust,...
Worship is right because God is worthy of it; it is the best of all antidotes to our own self-centeredness, the most effective way to “disinfect us of egotism,” as one writer put it long ago. In true worship we turn the searchlight of our mind and heart upon God and...
Churches have almost come to blows over whether God is better heard in an organ or a guitar. Sometimes worship is fast and loud—a find way to celebrate God’s goodness. At other times, worship is solemn and thoughtful—also a fine way to celebrate God’s goodness. Some...