UNDER PRESSURE â—½ ENCOURAGEMENT
The Heart of Worship
by Debbie Haynes
What is worship?
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What isn’t worship?
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I just read the story of Abraham again, where God tested Abraham’s faith. I can imagine a conversation that could have occurred, if it were one of us in that testing! Abraham’s response could have been, “Lord, you just gave us Isaac. We’ve had him so short a time. He isn’t even established as a man with a family of his own yet…” But yet we read in Romans that Abraham staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief, being fully persuaded that what God had promised he was fully able to perform.
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Abraham knew the cost of what God required – he carried the knife himself. Yet, by faith, he considered it worship. Abraham’s heart-felt worship to God was in the very act of obedience, in physically opening his hands and letting go of the one thing he cherished above all else. And in opening his heart in unquestioning belief that God would perform his word.
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This was worship.
I read that in this service of Abraham’s worship there was no fanfare, no music, no strobe lights flashing, and no theatrics. There was nothing of man, except obedience and faith.​
I believe that’s what worship is. It isn’t anything that comes from without, it’s not in the surroundings, the lights, music, entertaining singers or anything remotely close to that.
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Worship comes from within. Its source is that river of living water that flows from our innermost being upward to God and it results in deeds of obedient living.
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Romans 12 tells us what real worship is. It’s an appeal to…
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Present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship.
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Nothing withheld, nothing gripped so tightly we can’t let it go and give it God. We have no rights or hold to anything. And letting go in our daily life of living for Him produces worship.
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Worship cannot be reduced to 15 minutes of singing at church, but rather intentionally living our lives daily unto Him. We can trust God to faithfully perform his word towards us. What he has promised us is far more valuable than anything we can hold onto here.
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Father God, our desire is to be found obedient and faithful, and to recognize how, in living our daily lives, we can worship you. Show us and help us understand this, as we get blinded by our own will, by pressures in life. Thank you for your love and patience with us. Amen.