This week God has been pressing it on my heart to think about what our lives look like. How do we represent Him? Do people see Him at work in our us? Is He present in our actions and in our everyday talk? Are we hiding away the gospel in our heart or are we letting in live out loud in our life?
Today He has once again pressed on my heart a very import topic to every Christian's life...Worship. Sadly enough when most people hear that word their mind goes straight to a Sunday morning service with a worship band playing and group of people praising God. And if you ask them how their worship is they think about things like "do lift my hands in praise to Him", "do I close my eyes during worship" "do I allow the holy spirit to move upon me"? But what I am actually talking about today is the worship of God in your everyday life. Do you worship Him with your life?
I think there are many ways we can worship God as a lifestyle. It should be happening in our homes, at our jobs, in our cars.....everywhere we are His worship should be present. Worship is more than a song, it is even more than a feeling. It should be something that takes place in our heart, our mind, our body and our soul. It should be a passion that runs through us because we have fully given ourselves to God. We are no longer our own, but we have been bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Therefore our lives should reflect that.
It is very hard to worship God if you let day after day go by making selfish decisions where you don't stop and think "how is this affecting my relationship with God". I know it may sound a little "over the top" to some to think that each decision I make could affect my worship to God, but I would say absolutely. Just as much so as decisions you make in your marriage could affect your relationship with your spouse. Make enough selfish decisions and see what kind of distance that creates between you and your spouse. See if they feel important to you, thought of, or even if they feel like they are in the top 5 places of your priorities. Why would our creator not look down on us and wonder the same thing. Why would He not ask us "have I even crossed your mind today"?
What does worshipping God with our lifestyle look like? First and foremost I would say it looks like putting Him first in all you do. Having the mind set of "if this does not draw me closer to God, why am I even entertaining this in my life?". I would say it involves filtering out "stuff" that takes up your time if your not spending enough time with Him. It involves putting others before yourself as Jesus instructed us to do. And most important is doing all of these things out of pure joy....not duty and not obligation.
Sure I can cruise through life obeying a list of do's and don'ts. I can make sure I try to keep all the commandments. Or I can shut myself out from the world so I just don't have to deal with temptation on daily basis. But I know that God sees deep inside my heart, and I know that He knows there is no worship in that. And if worshipping Him is really my ultimate goal, then I want my heart to be driving the things I do and don't do that please Him. Loving Him and showing Him that my discipline and obedience come with great joy IS worship. Nobody ever wants you to do something for them begrudgingly. They would almost rather you not do it at all. And I would venture to say that God probably feels the same way. But when we serve Him, it blesses Him...which in turn opens the door for Him to bless us. Not because He is a God who is up there "keeping score", but because we have lined ourselves up to receive His blessings.
The equation is pretty simple. Allow Him to change your heart, then worship Him with all of that heart and then feel His favor and blessings on your life. That's the circle....He blesses us, that changes our heart even more, we worship Him with our life, He blesses us... And the most important part is that we get to tell others about this and help grow His kingdom!
God, I pray we worship You today with our lifestyle. We honor You and we praise You because You are worthy. You are faithful and true, and we want to live a life that pleases You. Please help us see the areas of our life that need worked on so we can worship you with ALL of what we do. Not so You will love us more, but so that we can show You more of our love! Holy Spirit live in us and create and attitude of worship inside of us that we can draw from each and every moment of the day. In Jesus name, Amen
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