What is Worship
songs to God about God. One believer might think of reverent hymns
and another of rockin' jams, but worship to both is equal to singing
songs.
But the first use of the word "worship" in the Bible is of Abraham
telling his men to wait for him while he went up the mountain to
sacrifice his son. In his book "Come Together and Worship," Max
Lucado writes that if there was no other mention of the word "worship"
in the Bible, we'd already have enough to know what worship is: giving
God the biggest part of our life.
Abraham's son, of course, was not only his own flesh and blood but the
very thing through whom God's great promises were to be fulfilled. In
Abraham's culture, there was no greater blessing than to have lots of
descendants, and in his old age, while he was yet childless, Abraham
received a promise from God that he would have countless descendants.
When at the ripe old age of 99, Isaac came along, Abraham must have
naturally assumed he was the down payment on a multitude of
descendants to come. So when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son,
Abraham's obedient response - which he described as "worship" to his
men - was indeed to give God the biggest part of his life.
It is my hope for my own life and for the life of the church universal
and global that "worship" is expanded in our minds to mean more than
singing songs to God, but that it is a call to give God the biggest
parts of our lives. God will be more pleased, our own souls more
enriched, and the world around us more moved, if "worship" is more
than something we do with our voices and instruments, but is a daily
giving over of ourselves and our deepest longings to One who is worthy
of all of that and more.
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