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I hope you have read the previous two weeks' articles developing an idea of what worship really is. Based on these I would like to propose the following definition of worship. I do not pretend that I think this encapsulates every attribute of worship (Christians have been trying to put their finger on this for two thousand years!) but I hope you can appreciate where this comes from:

Worship is the way we live our lives by making sacrifices for the glory of one at which our worship is aimed, be that God or another. Worship of God must involve our full engagement and is founded on a relationship with Jesus.

In order to explain allow me to give three examples to explain how this works itself out.

Firstly we have a non-Christian who is worshipping idols. He loves his wife and refuses to take overtime offered at work to spend time with her. He spends all his money on pleasing her. He is always looking out for ways to serve her around the house. She is everything to him; his sacrifices of time and money, and therefore his worship is founded on a relationship with his wife.

Secondly we have a Christian, worshipping God. He loves his wife because the Bible tells him to. He also refuses overtime to spend time with his wife because that is his conviction based on biblical principles. He loves his wife but his first love is Jesus; loving his wife requires sacrifice and is his worship, founded on a relationship with Jesus.

Thirdly we have a self-titled Christian, worshipping idols. He enjoys taking Bible passages out of context and treats his wife as his servant. He sacrifices his own personal holiness and a good relationship with his wife in order to worship his god, his own body, founded on a love for himself.

Hopefully you will agree that the second example is the correct outworking of Jesus’ command.

The first man is admirable in the eyes of the world, but is not worshipping God. His worship is directed at another, and his wife receives all the glory, honour and power. His wife is his idol. He will suffer if his god changes in some way; his wife may die, or change, and everything he lives for will be lost. What will his response be?

The third example is disgusting. He lives to bring glory to himself. I hope you can agree that this is not how worship of God is carried out, despite the fact that he calls himself a Christian and bases his actions on some Bible verses. Is he truly worshipping when he sings songs on a Sunday?

I would ask you this question this week: are you truly worshipping when you sing songs on a Sunday? If Jesus were to do a 'worship audit' on your life then who, or what, would your god be?

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

In His Glorious and Awesome Name Deut. 28:58