Based on my comments this morning at the Men's Thursday Bible Study, hopefully I can accurately share some insights from the 9 am Tri-Lakes empty nesters Bible group with respect to how "people" worship.
Essentially, but not intended to be all inclusive, people tend to worship in two ways:
1. Response
2. Negotiate
An example how people would worship in "response" mode is when they give thanks to the Lord for their blessings, or in the context of establishing a personal relationship with our Lord or Savior.
On the other hand, another observed form of worship is a "negotiate" mode where we tend to offer to obey God's commands or do something with expectations of some positive respond from our Lord. This is sort of an imposed covenant from the bottom up, and the potential risk is what those imposed "expectations" may be beyond salvation. That said, the point was that for the obvious reasons or maybe not so obvious, this form of worship is shallow at best, or questionable. Just because I got up on Sunday to attend a worship service, it would be self centered of me to think that God owes me for attendance. I will confess I have been guilty in this type of worship in the past to some degree, and hopefully, am sufficiently enlighten now to avoid this type of worship. Of course, worship based an existing covenant offered from our Lord (i.e., Salvation through Christ) would not be subject to negotiation. Also, this observation was not intended to apply to our prayer life, where we can ask our Lord to help us.
Jim asked a couple of weeks ago what did it mean to each of us to worship. The points made above was not intended to define or dictate how we as believers should worship, but rather make us rethink why we worship.
It was a great Thursday study, and as ended, we prayed for our brothers in attendance and not in attendance that the Spirit would be there to help us all with our burdens of this day and during the pending week. May we live the WORD. God bless you all.
We don't take encough time to comment on each other's postings. Actually, the comment section of our blog should be looked at as a discussion thread.
ReplyDeleteSo, on the topic of worship ...
... an often overlooked psalm is the very last entry in the Book of Psalms. It has to do with worship and praise.
Psalm 150
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
2 Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
3 Praise Him with trumpet sound;
Praise Him with harp and lyre.
4 Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD! (NASB)
To that I could only add: praise Him with humility. Praise Him with joy in your heart.
For an excellent analysis on this Psalm, may I suggest an article "What Does It Mean to Praise?" by W. Robert Godfrey. You can find it online at:
http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=678&var3=searchresults&var4=Search&var5=worship
After meditating on 150, I harken back to Psalm 100.
1 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
3 Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
5 For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. (NASB)
(Robb once challenged the Tuesday guys to commit this to memory. Two of us did.)
Worship?
To me, there are two kinds, practiced in many ways —— personal worship and corporate. In my mind, aside from praise, worship are those things we do in everyday life to bring honor to God through service in Jesus. That includes attending worship services with the proper frame of mind. These two Psalms help as a frame of reference.
Just as important, Romans 15 ...
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Is that not also worship? Or, as the term goes, "worth-ship"? Of course it is.
In Him,
Jim
I agree! With both of you. Here is a passage that I have found to be intriguing--and it fits Jim's suggestion that worship is "those things we do in everyday life to bring honor to God through service in Jesus."
ReplyDelete"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." Hebrews 13:15-16
For me, it is often in these "sacrifices" of doing good and sharing what I have that my worship moves into the "negotiation" mode. You know -- like, "God, I'm trying to do something good here. How can you let me have a dead battery."
God, be merciful to me a sinner!