Worship is More Than a Song – Part I

What does worship mean to you?

For myself. I used to think of worship only being the first part of the church service. As I have discovered, Worship goes beyond singing just a song. As I open the trusty Webster Dictionary it says: Worship is to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.

In other words, Worship, is defined by the priority we place on WHO God is in our lives and where God is on our list of priorities. True worship is a matter of the heart expressed through a lifestyle.

Years ago, it was popular to say WWJD meaning What Would Jesus Do? If you filter your relationships and actions through the love of Jesus and think WWJD… by doing this, you are honoring and submitting to God. In other words, you are Worshiping.

Do you ever recall a time at the store when a cashier has been rude to you? Did you snap back? If you bite your tongue and reminded yourself to show grace then by doing so, your response is worshiping God.

This response is often hard to do, showing grace that is. It’s denying our selfish desires to snap back and to instead choose love. Let’s be honest we all snap back at the cashier sometimes…we are sinners. That’s why when we submit to God in our hearts and choose the WWJD approach instead of our own, we are honoring God.

This is just one way of many for us to worship.

But most importantly worship is about what our heart is focused on. Are we allowing distractions of the outside world to take our focus off of our Heavenly Father, the creator of this world? Because let’s face it, life gets busy! We have so many things that can distract us from a life of worship. I know for myself I’ve got many distractions, my cell phone being one of them.

I rely on that cell phone so much. I hadn’t realized how much I relied on my phone until it broke, and I had to send it away. Two days without it and I thought for sure I was going to die. But those two days without it made me see how much more free time I had. How my focus could be better put on things not of this world like Facebook or looking at baby goats. Love myself some baby goat videos. Anyhow, I noticed how my distraction had my husband taking the backseat to text messaging, Facebook, and Pinterest strolling. Many times, he’d be talking to me and suddenly I’d hear a ding. Reach for my phone. Pretending like I was listening to him. Nodding my head every so often, sneaking in a smile or laugh to make it seem like I was actively listening. But my focus on him was nowhere to be found. What does this got to do with worship you may be asking yourself. Distractions can sidetrack us from a life of worship. And there have been enormous times I’ve allowed distractions to keep me from giving myself totally to God just like I’ve allowed my cell phone to distract me from listening to my husband.

Which circles me back to worshiping being more than a song. Remember, worship is to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission. Think about it, we are to worship God because He loved us first. I found this post on first15.org:

“Psalm 132:7 says, “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!” When we worship, we enter into direct contact with our all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing heavenly Father. God’s desire in worship is to draw us near to himself, fill us to overflow with his love, and wait patiently for us to love him in return. The more often we receive his love through worship, the more consistently we will love and honor him in all we do. I fear that many Christians engage in worship because they feel they should or are allotted a time in church to do so, but all the while never really desire to worship God. God is not a prideful King who demands inauthentic praise from his people. He is in no way insecure or needy. He is simply after true communion with you where he loves you and you love him in return. And he will keep loving you, speaking to you, and reminding you of his desire for you until you open your heart and realize that loving him is the most satisfying, fulfilling, and purposeful way to live.”

I believe God “wants us” to focus on him not just “have to” focus on him. Some may think its egotistical for God to want our undivided attention and focus solely on him? Well, they are wrong in my opinion….

Lindsey is a stay at home wife, mother and newer follower of Christ. The desire has been placed in her to share her experiences of her growing relationship with God and to let others know that His love is unconditional. You can email her @ quitesimplylindsey@gmail.com