Misunderstood Worship

Rom 11:36b-12:1 To him be the glory forever! Amen. Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.

As a young Christian, I met many individuals who had a profound impact on me - some for good and many by virtue of them being so wrong. One such individual, told me the story of how they went to a pentecostal service that the praise and worship was so exuberant that many were "dancing in the spirit" along with the praise music. Their group was led by a self-proclaimed judge of the move of the Spirit. When this man saw a woman praising God in a red dress (because they believed that wearing red was sinful like the whore in the book of Revelation), he proclaimed, "That woman's praise is unacceptable!" He believed that God did indeed look at the outward and refused her praise on the basis the color of her dress!!

It is interesting to me that, in both the Old and Testaments, the words used that are translated "worship" mean to bow or to prostrate one's self in the presence of another. In this definition I see what Paul mentioned as our spiritual act of worship. It is first ascribing glory to another and second to sacrifice ourselves.

The Greek word translated "glory" means to "make very apparent." The idea is that whatever we glory gets bigger in our eyes. In other words, whatever we esteem, value, or focus more attention on we ascribe glory to. Paul, in the passage above, tells us that to Jesus should be the glory. He must increase in our eyes. He should be the focus of our lives.

The second aspect of worship is that of prostrating or sacrificing. John the baptist said of Jesus, "He must increase and I must decrease." Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." The idea is that we sacrifice other things for whatever we worship. We lay down our wills and deny ourself. We humble ourselves with contrite and broken hearts.

You can see that THIS is the reason Jesus so hottly rebuked the Pharisees, they refused to prostrate their hearts and humble themselves. Whenever we refuse to humble ourselves and decrease in God's presence we are not worshiping in the literal sense.

So often in church during the "praise and worship" portion of the service we stand or are told to stand. It is not often we are told to bow or to fall to our knees. Yet this is what the figure or analogy is for worship. Let us bow our hearts, let us deny ourselves next time we praise Jesus and glorify Him, remembering that if we fail to humble ourselves we fail to worship. And MOST importantly...let us not judge others as they worship!! As the song says, "Down at Your feet, oh Lord, is the most high praise."