Worshipers

John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

What were you created for? What is your purpose? How do you glorify God? These questions should be on the minds of Christ’s followers every day. Here is the good news. We all are created to worship God--plain and simple. That’s it in a nutshell. Worship is the core of living in authentic devotion to God.

How about a definition of worship? First let’s start with what worship is not. Worship is not about what I get out of it. It is not self-gratifying or self-serving. Worship is not doing or going to a worship service at a church, or singing hymns or praise courses. Worship is not listening to a sermon or receiving communion. Worship is not gathering together to support one another and even offering prayers. That’s not worship. That is what we do to get to worship.

So let me ask the big question. Are you a worshiper? By definition, a worshiper is one who is in relationship in an intimate way with God. It is about putting God first in everything and looking to Him for our source of strength. It is about forsaking all and taking up our cross to come and follow. Here is truth: worship services are easy, worship of God is difficult. It is difficult because it diminishes how we do things and places the importance on why we do things. Worship, my friends, is about God, and our relationship with Him.

So how do we get to this place where we become worshipers instead of just doing worship? The key is found in the passage of scripture we started with from John 4:23 on spirit and truth. Spirit is the attitude of worship, yes enhanced by the work of the Holy Spirit, but primarily the extent of where we need to go in our life of our self-surrendering everything to God. We do this so that we can stand before Him unconstrained in our purity of worship. Another way to say that is, we have come to the place in our life where nothing else matters except knowing God.

Truth in worship is coming to the place in our life where we can stand before Him without any contamination of self-wordiness. We become transparent before God who knows already everything there is to know about us. Here is the beauty of this statement. God already knows our darkest stuff, so when we come to worship we need to understand that He knows everything already. That’s what makes it authentic. There’s no hiding the truth from God.

One more point of “Good News.” Scripture says that worshipers such as these are the very ones God is seeking. We don’t have the excuse that we can’t get to this high demand on worship because it is too high or unachievable. Our hope is in the fact that God is seeking us to worship Him in exactly this way. Take heart, it is possible to be a worshiper today and every day. See you in worship.

Blessings, Rip