Worship pt. 1

Hello everyone!

Well, I've decided to do some posts on worship. If everything goes as planned, this will be the first post in a series of blog entries discussing the subject of Worship. Seeing as this is the first time I've really done anything like this, please bear with me. These might not be the most well written blog entries you've ever read.

So today I want to talk about what worship IS. You might say, "It's the slow songs we sing at church," or, "It's the point in the service where we sing songs." Well, sort of. But I think it goes much deeper than singing a song.

I'm in the middle of doing a study on worship, so I recently looked up Scriptures on the subject, most of which were in the Old Testament. No, I'm not going to bore you on the history of Old Testament musical instruments or anything like that. But I hope you don't mind me pointing out one or two Hebrew words and meanings.

1 Chronicles 6:31-32a "David assigned the following men to lead the music at the house of the Lord after the Ark was placed there. ³² They ministered with music at the Tabernacle..."
The Hebrew word for ministered (according to my notes) is sharath. It means "Service before the Lord." You don't have to be up on stage singing or playing an instrument at church to be ministering before the Lord. You can minister to God first of all by singing the songs to Him - not just singing them because it's what's expected of you. But when you really take time to think about the words and sing it to Him, that's ministering to the Lord.
Next, you can minister to God and others by volunteering at church. Whether it be helping out with children's church, passing out church bullitens, greeting people at the door, or even holding a door open for someone, you're ministering to others. You are "serving them before the Lord." This not only is serving others, but it is also serving the Lord because it is obeying His commands to serve.
You can also minister by serving outside of church - in your home, school (for some cases, your home may be your school :) ), where you work, volunteer, etc. You can minister to your family by doing chores around the house without complaining and before you're asked to do them. You can be an extra blessing by doing extra chores. You can also minister by lending a listening ear to a friend, family member, co-worker, etc. The list goes on and on.

But you can do all these things and still not worship God with them if you're not doing them "as unto the Lord." What does this mean? Well, think about it. If you could see Jesus physically, and He was standing right in front of you and asked you to say... wash the dishes, wouldn't you wash the dishes the best you can? When you do something as unto the Lord, you are doing it to Him, giving Him your best out of love for Him. Cain's offering was not accepted by God because it was not his best. 1 Corinthians 13 says that even if you gave all you had to the poor, and didn't have love, that it would be meaningless. Nothing. So we need to have love in all we do - not just love for God, but love for people. True, God doesn't NEED worship, but He still requires it of us. We may get into that in a later post.

So to summarize, worship is giving yourself to God out of love for Him. It is the giving of our time, talents, money (such as tithes, offerings, etc.), our desires, etc., to Him. So today, just ask God to help you surrender your all to Him. Tell Him that you want to serve Him in all you do, and ask Him to give you the strength to do so, and that He would remind you to.

Romans 12:1 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship." (NIV)