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Daily Devotion: The Word Revealed - Worship: According to the Word of God and Embracing All of Life - 2 Timothy 4:2 and Psalm 139 1-3

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A Christian worship service is a formal gathering of the redeemed to personally express their love and adoration toward God.  In these services we declare the “worth-ship” of God.  In worship, we see, hear, and understand how God reveals Himself as deity; we agree with God’s assessment of Himself; and we give God what He is due, our full-fledged love and devotion, all praise, honor, and glory.  Worship is essential for our love of God to become more passionate, intimate, and fulfilling.  God’s Word communicates the principles of how to properly worship the Lord.  Those Biblical principles are:  Worship is to be God-centered and God-directed, Worship is to be Christ-focused, Worship is to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led, Worship is to be according to and filled with the Word of God, Worship is to embrace every aspect of our life.  Today we explore the principles of worship being According to the Word of God and Embracing Every Area of Our Lives.

Worship is to be According To and Filled With the Word of God

Proper worship services will follow the dictates of God’s Word.  God tells us how to worship, and how not to worship.  Our love relationship with the Lord grows as we hear God’s Word in the worship service.  We are to hear the Word read, taught, preached, and shared.  The Apostle Paul told Timothy, “give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.”  Furthermore, Paul instructed Timothy to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” 2 Timothy 4:2.  As we hear the great truths of the nature of God, the wonder of our salvation, and the glory of our high calling, how could we not fall further and further in love with our God?

Pause & Ponder: Worship is a participatory activity. We don’t watch worship; we actively participate in worshiping the Lord.  Having our Bibles open, following along as God’s Word is read, or taught, or preached always brings greater depth and meaning and blessing to our worship experience.  Fully participate in each worship by having your Bibles open and engage yourself in the ministry of the Word.

Worship is to Embrace Every Aspect of Our Life

Worship is not to be disconnected from the everyday life to which God has called us.  We are to rejoice in creation: Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”  We are to glory in the human experience: Psalm 139:1-3, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways.”  In worship we are to praise God for His perfect commandments which are for our good and protection: Psalm 119:14-16, “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.”  The list of how our worship is to cover every aspect of our life is wonderfully long and at each step leads us to see new glory in the one we love above all else.  In worship, we are to confess our sins and celebrate forgiveness.  We are to cry out to God in times of trouble and sorrow.  We pray for vindication when we are falsely accused.  We are to praise God for answered prayer and deliverance.  We are to call upon God’s judgment of evil.  We are to rejoice in loved ones, and work, and all the daily blessings of life.  And we are to look forward to the coming again of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  God calls us to worship Him in the context of our everyday world of which He is in sovereign control.  See His handiwork and fall further in love with Him.

Conclusion

The worship service of a church is to be a passionate expression of love and allegiance to our Savior God.  Worship is accomplished not merely by worship leaders and the pastor following these five principles.  Worship is accomplished when all the gathered believers are humbly applying these five principles.  The love and adoration shown is pleasing to the Lord when it is God-centered and God-directed, Christ-Focused, Spirit-filled and Spirit-led, filled with and according to the Word, and embraces every aspect of our life.  This type of worship is not only pleasing to the Lord, it blesses every area of our love relationship with God.  These regular celebrations of love are essential to a vibrant love relationship with the God of our salvation.

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