Prayer Station #5: Worship

The word ‘worship’ literally means bow or serve. It gives us a picture of a lowly servant prostrating before a king with knees bended and face hidden.

Do we have the same picture when we come before the Lord of the most high, the King above all Kings? Pause and take a moment here to reflect upon how you have been coming before God. Have you been coming before him with reverence or before him in flippancy?

Psalms 2:11 says ‘Worship the Lord with reverence, Ands rejoice with trembling.’

This should be the manner in which we should worship. The Lord of the most high and King above all Kings deserve much more than earthly kings. If we could come before earthly men in reverence, how much more we should approach our God with reverence, fear and trembling.

Now spend some time to pray. If you have not been coming before God in an appropriate manner, do pray for a repentant heart, ask God for forgiveness. Next, ask God for the constant effort to come before him in reverence each time we come together to worship him.

John 4:23, 24 – ‘But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’

In this passage, there are two key elements of worship stated in this verse. There are spirit and truth. These are the two elements that true worshipers of God cannot do without during worship. This is the means of worship.

God is spirit and we can only worship him in our spirit. Our worship must spring forth from the innermost depth of our being just as Psalms 103:1 puts it: ‘Praise the Lord, O my soul, let all that is within me praise His holy name.’ The only way we can reach God is through our innermost being, the indwelling holy spirit.

We ought to worship him also in truth. Our God is a God of truth. When we come before him, we ought to come before him as we really are, with true sincerity and hiding nothing from him. This is how we should worship our Lord.

Spend some time now to ponder over how you worship God. Do you worship with mere externalities (e.g raising of hands, closing of eyes, singing of songs) or do you worship God from your innermost being, the spirit that is in you? Do you come to worship God thinking he is someone you could please with outward action or do you come in truth, as you are, an unworthy sinner before a Holy God? Spend some time to pray for this aspect of worship in your life.

Finally and most importantly, we need to recognise our object of worship. This is what that differentiates our worship from all other religions. In Acts 17:23, Paul rebuked the Men of Athens because they worshiped AN UNKNOWN GOD in ignorance though they were extremely religious. From this, we see that being very religious or even reverent do not really matter if we have the wrong object of worship.

Therefore, it is imperative to know who we really worship. We worship the God who made the world and all things in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, the one who gives to all life and breath (Acts 17:24, 25). Only then, our worship can be truly meaningful and purposeful.

Romans 12:1 sums up worship very beautifully. ‘I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.’

Very often, we do have misconceptions that worship is all about singing praise and worship songs. But actually, singing praise and worship songs are just one of the many forms of worship. Our lives, presented to God, are already worship in his eyes.

Spend some time now to pray. Focus your attention upon God. Spend some time now to worship him and praise him, simply for who he is and what he has done for us.