Worship Must Be Our Life

Who can ever attempt to answer the life questions we continue to ask ourselves (and I hope we are asking them) such as: Why am I here? or Why are things as they are? Worship can!

I believe that an awakening to the power of worship, to reinstate God's intent for humankind can help us answer these questions of human purpose. A drug-drunk, suicide-prone, binge-oriented culture lives on that ragged edge of emptiness because it has become self-seeking. Information, experience and pleasure do not fill the emptiness. So, they continue to ask those questions: Why am I here? or Why are things as they are?

This is not an exaggeration of the problem with people today, and neither is it an exaggeration that worship can hold the solution to their dilemma. We need to let our worship change our lives.

Let us get away from the tidiness of our ideas and methods—and let us prescribe fresh approaches and new insights. Let us sacrifice everything in us that holds on to tradition. No part of human experience is more shaped by tradition than the way we worship. Whether we like it or not, we prefer worship styles that suit our taste and tradition first, and the truth becomes secondary.

Therefore Worship must: 1). Exalt the person we worship—Jesus, who died to redeem us from the sin curse of eternal death and who did so at the expense of His own lifeblood on the cross. 2). Must be our practice. It is a priestly ministry. And what are the characteristics of a priest? Duty and Purity. "Having been made priests under God and Savior, we have a lifelong call (one never outgrows worship) and a holy calling (purity and faithfulness are not options, they are required). 3). Our perspective should be that we become kings under the King of kings. God not only washed us of our sins and made us priests, but we have become a kingdom of priests. Peter describes it as a "royal priesthood." Worship is intended to bring God's power into the church and so extend it throughout the church...into the lives of the worshiper and thus influence everything we influence.

When we allow worship to be what it was intended to be since the creation of the world, only then can we begin to find answers to those difficult life questions like Why am I here? May God infuse your life today.

Let's talk about worship. Over the next few months we'll hear what the Word of God says about worship. My hope is that our understanding of worship will become clearer to us and that it may indeed become the focus of all that we do. Let's worship the King!

In the name of the One we worship,

Pastor Mark