Worship

What comes to mind when people speak of worship? One may think that singing praises to God is worship or being busy in the church is worship. Others might say that giving their money to the church is worship. But what is true worship? What's at the root of all the singing, serving, and giving? Are these just things that we do on Sunday to make us feel good about ourselves, or is this what God says that worship is?
Take a look at Genisis 22:1-5. How do Abraham and Isaac define worship? I know one thing, they weren't exactly jumping up and down, screaming for joy because of the fact that one of them (Isaac) was going to be sacrificed. But the second part of verse five says that "...the lad and I will go yonder to worship..." Abraham and Isaac were worshipping God by being obedient to Him. Abraham was trusting in God and Isaac was trusting his father, Abraham.
Another example of obedience defining worship is in Job 1:6-20. Job fell to the ground and surrenderd himself to the Lord and worshipped Him. God tells us that obedience is better than sacrifice. Worship is better than sacrifice. Worshipping the Lord takes faith. Look at Abraham, Isaac, and Job for instance. If they didn't walk by faith, but according to what they saw before them, they would have disobeyed the Lord, meaning that they would have been denying Him the worship that He alone deserves. They would have been putting a limit on what the Lord can do. When we put a limit on what the Lord can do, there's a huge chance that we're making a god after our own image and that is NOT something that we want to do.
But think about it, we do, do that at times. Sometimes we don't surrender every part of our lives to Christ. It could be that we're just plain afraid of what the Lord would and could do with that part of our lives that we're holding back from Him. Wouldn't that be telling God that He's not big enough for our problems, worries, concerns, or even times of joy? God is so much bigger than we our and we shouldn't try to fit Him or shrink Him to our own understanding, making Him smaller than what He truly is.
When one start's to trust God, He will entrust that person with things that they never have even imagined. One last passage that I want to leave you all with is John 4:20-26. One defines what they worship with how they worship. Obedience is the root of true worship. And when the roots start to grow, we can really have something to rejoice and sing about. But lets not starve our roots, leaving it to singing, serving, and giving. Let's step out on faith and be obedient to God, from the small things, to the big things. God has no limit at all.


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