Lesson 27: Now - How Am I To Worship God? (2)

The second negative about worshiping in spirit is that it must not be a halfhearted attempt. As we saw in Deuteronomy 6:5 in our last lesson, worship in spirit demands all my heart, all my soul, all my strength – it demands everything of me and I must give it because I want to rather than because it is demanded. This means we cannot be quoting something from memory or singing something repetitive while our mind is a million miles away trying to resolve some issue at home or at work.

We must worship in spirit, and we must worship in truth. Worshiping in spirit alone is no good if we're worshiping the wrong way. With Pilate, then, comes the question, "what is truth?" Jesus answered that question as well, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). But Jesus went on to define truth in another way. In John 17:17 He said, "sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth." We must worship God in ways that are consistent with what is revealed in Scripture. This means we are following God's agenda, not our own. Look again at the story of Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. Both took something from their work, something to which they had contributed and in which their lives were intimately involved, to make their sacrifice to God. Both took from what pleased them to give to God to please Him. God only accepted one of the sacrifices. This was not because one brought something bad to the altar. It was only and simply because one brought what God had commanded them to bring and the other did not. The judgment on Cain had absolutely nothing to do with the quality or quantity of his sacrifice. It only had to do with obedience.


In our worship today, do we tend to bring what pleases us to God rather than finding out what pleases Him? What about the music in our churches today – is it chosen because it pleases us, or is it chosen because it is what God wants? What about the entertainment in our churches today? What about the very surroundings in our church sanctuaries? What about the clothing we wear to go to church? What about the things we say to each other? What about the order of service? In all these things, do we ever give a thought to what God would want us to do, or are we simply satisfying ourselves or a majority vote?

To answer many of these questions we need to look at what God designed as a place of corporate worship in the Old Testament – the tabernacle. The tabernacle was God's blueprint for corporate worship, and is not limited to Old Testament times. We know this because we see references to the heavenly tabernacle mentioned many times – Jesus presented His blood before the mercy seat of God in heaven after He rose from the dead (Hebrews 9:11-28).

We will study this more in the next lesson.