I write a lot in these Sunday Thoughts columns about worship. It’s important to me as a worship leader and as someone who enjoys worship in general. It should be important to you. I’m going to share a couple of quotes that bolster my point before I dive deeper.
“Worship is no small thing; it is the expression of a relationship with God,” says worship leader Brandon Lake.
“Whatever happens in genuine worship, some statement is being made about the fact that the Lord is our God and we are his people,” wrote R.C. Leonard.
(Note here that I'm talking about the act of worship as part of a church service. Every part of our lives is an act of worship in some way, but I'm looking at it more strictly here.)
Our worship is our acknowledgment of our relationship with God. It’s our way of declaring that we need Him.
Related: Sunday Thoughts: Raise Your Voices, Men of God!
“It’s not that God needs our worship; he doesn’t need anything!” read a recent devotional email I received. “But one important aspect of our worship is that it reveals our relationship with Him: both who we are to Him, and who He is to us.”
It can be a bracing thought that God doesn’t need us, but it’s true. When he was explaining the “Unknown God” to the thinkers of Athens, the Apostle Paul drove that point home:
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
Acts 17:22-25 (ESV)
Of course, that makes our worship a special offering because it comes from the overflow of our hearts. Psalm 95:1-7 (ESV) calls us to worship the God who takes care of us:
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
God also works on us through our worship. I stumbled on this devotional from songwriter Tommy Walker, who wrote in 2007:
When we worship, the invisible God is at work doing invisible and powerful things. We get realigned, refreshed, and refueled; we find unspeakable joy and indescribable peace. We discover the breakthrough strength of God, which enables us to walk in the truth, live in His presence, and see Him fight our battles for us. It is how we can put the beauty of the Gospel on display, receive His many blessings and at the same time be a blessing to the world.
Never forget that your worship matters. Don’t think that your worship isn’t important because you can’t sing or because you’re shy. Your worship is an offering to the God who created you, loves you, and sent His Son to save you!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member