God seeks worshipers. The Bible throughout speaks of worship and of calls to worship. While people may foolishly worship all sorts of things, only God is worthy to receive worship. He alone is perfect and all-powerful who deserves our worship. It is a crucial spiritual discipline (previous disciplines in this series dealt with the mind, devotion, and prayer.

What is worship?

Worship means to bow down or to fall down. We are interested specifically in worshiping God, so then the meaning is to fall down before Him. It is the human response to the divine initiative. In John 4:23-24 Jesus says to the woman at the well:

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

The purpose of this discipline is to practice acceptable worship. In John 4 Jesus identifies who the true worshipers are. In Matthew 15:8-9, quoting from Isaiah, he rebukes the religious establishment of his day for failing to worship God, saying “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me.”

It is possible to envision that genuine worship is taking place when it is not. Worship is not mere ritual performing. It is not religious practice. This is what Jesus clarified to the woman at the well, who was inquiring about the ritualistic aspect of worship. Instead, Jesus tells her to genuinely worship God one needs to do it in spirit and in truth.

No matter how impressive the program in church may be and how delighted the people are in the congregation over what is taking place, if it is not worship fueled by the work of the Holy Spirit and directed exclusively to God, it will be in vain. God will reject it. Cain offered worship to God but it was rejected. The children of Israel were singing and dancing around the golden calf in the wilderness only to provoke God’s anger.

Sadly, this often happens today as well. There is much professionalism in the worship service of many churches – great music and amazing atmosphere – but acceptable worship is not always what is being offered. If we want to make sure that we are not people who only worship with our lips, we need to be rather strong in our understanding of true worship, what it is and how it is offered. So, then we ask again, what is worship?

Acceptable Worship

It is falling before him as a result of focusing on him. The focus is on him because He is worthy to be worshiped. In fact, He alone is worthy.

He alone is your God, the only one who is worthy of your praise, the one who has done these mighty miracles that you have seen with your own eyes (Deut 10:21).

Great emphasis is on His worthiness also in Revelation 5, where a great crowd is worshiping God. So, the first important aspect of worshiping God is that He alone is worthy.

Even more specifically, we see that worship is dependent on knowing and experiencing God. Understanding the character of God is what leads to acceptable worship. Only when we begin to see His holiness, His sovereignty, His power, His majesty, His love, and His faithfulness that we will see that indeed He alone is worthy of worship.

We cannot be deeply impressed with a beautiful landscape unless we see it with our eyes. We cannot appreciate an extremely delicious meal unless we taste it. Likewise, worship will flow from our understanding of God, who He is and what He does, from experiencing Him in our lives. A good number of psalms written by David express worship of God because they were written by a man who knew God, who experienced Him. Same thing in Paul’s epistles. So, knowing God and growing in the knowledge of Him is crucial for the worship of God.

Getting to know God

One way is through observing His creation. There is much in the universe that reflects the majesty of God and that will lead to praise. But, even more precise, God revealed himself in the Bible and through His son, Jesus Christ. Our knowledge of Him then is dependent on immersing ourselves in Scriptures. Furthermore, we will know more about God when we live in obedience to His will. So, a more complete answer would be that the study of His Word and its application in our lives will lead to increase in our knowledge of God.

This is what basically worship of God depends on. The manifestation of this worship can take several forms. It can be private, it can be in the intimacy of the family, and it can take place in a corporate setting, together with other believers (usually gathered together in the local church).

No matter the form, we need to know that worshiping God means to know Him more, to experience Him, to be changed, to be in obedience to Him, to represent Him in our interactions with others. We need to know that worship is an inward experience. It needs to be born in the heart. Without this our worship will amount to nothing. It will be useless.

I am writing this from the perspective of spiritual disciplines, so I want to point out several guidelines for acceptable worship. One, worship does not equal singing. While music is a great way to worship, it is not the only one. A number of other ways are suitable avenues. You can worship by practicing the other spiritual disciplines. Not only they provide abundant reasons for worship but the very engagement in them is an act of worship because to practice them requires focusing on God, the very thing that worship relies upon. One of the implications of this is that worship needs to take place every day of the week, not just on Sunday.  

Second, you need to commit yourselves to corporate worship as well, whether it is the Sunday morning service or a Bible study in someone’s home. This means going to these events, for one, and, second, expecting to worship God in a way that is acceptable to Him but also something that greatly blesses you.

So, don’t be one who only attempts worship out of religious routine. Don’ worship only with your lips. God seeks worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth, people who worship Him continuously. God delights in the person who is committed to know Him more, who seeks to please Him and bring Him glory in every area of life. Will you worship Him in this way?

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