What is "worship"? According to Dictionary.com, it is showing reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred. The word worship comes from two old English words, the first being "weorth" meaning worth and the second being "scipe" meaning shape or quality. So, we can see that this word means the quality of having worth. Therefore, when we worship, we are basically saying that God is worthy.
Now, in both Hebrew and Greek, there are two words for worship. The first kind means to bow down as a sign of submission. The first kind is all about obeying and when you are in submission bowing down, you are committing to obey(hopefully). The second kind means to serve such as making a sacrifice or doing something for the glory of God.These meanings of the word show us that there are three kinds of worship including speaking, listening, and doing. Worship is all three of these and if we only do one or two, I believe we are not giving true worship to the Lord.
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When we think of worship, we often think of standing in Church singing along to words on a screen lead by a praise band. I think it is very important to sing praises to the Lord, but I believe it is not true authentic worship when we lose sight of what worship actually is. For me, I get distracted and I have to truly focus on the words and not get caught up in the melodies of the song. With that said, here are 5 ways to worship the Lord without music.
1.) Sacrifice
I was talking to my pastor here in Saint Louis and he said "We often think of this incredible experience singing praises to God when we think of worship, but worship isn't always like that. Do you think Abraham thought he was worshipping God when he was about to sacrifice his son?" I was in awe because I have never thought of it like that before. Sometimes, worshipping God is not always pleasant at the time, it often takes true sacrifice and I believe the Lord is more pleased with our sacrifices more than singing hallelujah. When we sacrifice, we show our love by speaking, listening, and doing and that is true authentic worship. If we do speak, listen, and do when we sing praises we are worshipping, but it is just so easy to lose sight of what worship is and we can't let the lies of the enemy creep in on us so easily.
2.) Prayer
We can also show authentic worship to our Creator through genuine prayer. Think about your prayer life and ask yourself how much is about me and how much is about God? When Jesus taught us to pray, specifically in the Lord's prayer, He started off by saying "Our Father who is in Heaven, May Your name be honored." (Matthew 6:9) Prayer all starts with God and on how who God is. We are called to grow closer in our relationship with God, so God wants us to share everything with him. However, within that, he also wants us to get to know Him better. So, in your prayer time, truly focus on who God is.
3.) Digging into the Word
Another way we can show worship to the Lord is by digging into the Word of God. This is one way the Lord speaks to us. One key to worship is listening and by reading God's Word we are doing just that. I think prayer and reading the Word go hand in hand because like I mentioned earlier, there are three keys to worship: speaking, listening, and doing. We are speaking through prayer and we are listening by digging into God's word. One of the most important things we can do through reading the Bible is applying it to our lives and that is the doing part of worship. Therefore, when we speak through prayer, listen through the word, and then apply it to our life we are showing true authentic worship to the Lord.
However, we have to be careful to have the right motives. Worship is all about the heart and what you are doing these things for. I think that's why sacrifice is one of the most important things we can do to show worship because we have to give something up and we are showing where our heart is for the Lord. My challenge to everyone reading this is to not only show worship through singing praises to the Lord but to truly focus on these other three things and apply it to your life with a heart full of desire and motive to make the Lord's name famous.
