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True worship comes from the relationship we have with the Lord, and is built round the way we live our lives… Paul Unsworth Have you ever wondered why we worship God? What’s the big deal about singing choruses and hymns on a Sunday morning? Why do I have to ‘lift holy hands to the Lord’ or ‘Shout to the Lord’? Or you may well agree with the need to do the above, but still find it difficult to participate. Who knows what you’ve been through all week long? You’ve managed to drag yourself to church for a word from the Lord only to be confronted by someone ‘encouraging’ you to rejoice in the Lord. Well, believe it or not, realising what worship is and what it is not could make a great difference to how we worship God. True worship restores the relationship between man and Jesus, and the true worshipper desires that intimacy and union with God above all else… Worship is an expression of our heart. It is our heart flowing out and communing with God. - Pastor Benjamin Sealey Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4:23-24 that “…the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." Rev 4:11 also states “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (KJV) You can read the above to mean that God created us to worship Him, and He wants us doing so with all of our heart. Anything less falls short. We should be able to praise the Lord whether we are doing the dishes, at work during that difficult meeting with a client, or in church on a Sunday morning during the singing and sermon. Worship is developing a relationship with God by seeking Him out in His word, in prayer and meditation. The more we meditate on Him and His word, the more we see Him for who He is, and the more we want to seek Him. I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Ps 34:1 David chose to worship God when things were going well for him and when his life was in danger from Saul or the Philistine enemies, You see, he was confident at all times of God’s ability to deliver him from trouble. And when we have the same reality of God in our lives, it becomes easy for us to worship Him on a Sunday morning, or a Wednesday evening, because we worship the God we know like Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in verse 22 of the scripture we referred to earlier. We should never allow our circumstances determine the quality of our worship, because everything except God is transient. As one writer said, If we hope to spend eternity in praising God, it is fit that we should spend much of our time here in this work. So, spend time discovering who God is and worship Him from your experience of Him. Then when we all come together as a congregation, we can offer Him genuine worship.
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