What Is Worship?
Is worship the hour that we spend with each other on Sunday morning… or is it the songs we sing while there? For most believers, one of those two possibilities would suffice as an answer. We have a “worship” service. We have a “worship” leader to lead music. So naturally, many would lean toward one of those two answers. But if we accept those propositions as the answer to the question, we have missed the depth of worship by a mile.
Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, recently did a magnificent job of helping us to see the depth and breadth of worship in a recent post on his blog. Here’s a sample…
“Worship is living our life individually and corporately as continuous living sacrifices to the glory of a person or thing. This connection between glory and worship is clear in verses like Romans 11:36–12:1, which says, “To him be the glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” …First, we hold a person or thing in a place of glory. Second, we then worship that person or thing. Third, our worship of that person or thing we hold in glory is done by means of making sacrifices.
Glory means weightiness, importance, preeminence, priority, or that which is our greatest treasure, deepest longing, and fountain of hope. Functionally, what we hold in the place of glory is in effect our real god…Practically, worship is making sacrifices for what we are living to glorify.
In a nutshell, he helps us understand that worship is far more than the hour we gather or the music we sing. It is what we are willing to value and sacrifice for. Does that really describe our walk with Jesus Christ… or with something else?
I know for me personally, it is unbelievably easy to shift my focus from that of my sacrificial Savior to things which seem important but have little or no lasting value. Our flesh is easily distracted and our enemy is a masterful manipulator of that fact. I long to live a lifestyle of worship… not an hour of worship on Sunday. But in the end, my real worship can be evaluated by the things I raise to high value and am willing to go out of my way to elevate. So what does worship look like in your life?






















2 Comments
WinsomeONE
Tuesday, 17th June 2008 at 4:06 am
Not about worship per se, just a comment about your blog. Live traffic feed; blogroll; twitter. You’ve got the latest buzzes and whistles! Very cool.
Mark Doebler
Tuesday, 17th June 2008 at 12:02 pm
WinsomeONE…DUDE, you’re either up way too late or way too early. Wow! 4:06 am? Since I’ve been out of the Army, I’ve not even been sure if that time actually exists anymore. Thanks for the comment though.
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