Subject: TRUE HEART OF WORSHIP |
Bible Note: Hi, Kelly... I think you might want to refine that definition a bit. It isn't so much about man's effort to make worship God centered, as it is about God's effort to make it God centered. God Himself prescribes and provides for how He is to be worshipped. John Knox put it this way: "All worshiping, honoring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without His Own express commandment, is idolatry. We may not think us so free nor wise, that we may do unto God, and unto His honor, what we think expedient." The only way to worship God is by the single way in which He has provided for worship. Valuing God as He is genuinely worthy is only possible by the redeemed, and is expressed in the heart and in the mind; per John 4:24, as you have already mentioned. That reminds me of another good quote -- a contemporary one, this time: John Piper wrote "There are always two parts to true worship. There is seeing God and there is savoring God. You can't separate these. You must see Him to savor Him. And if you don't savor Him when you see Him, you insult Him. In true worship, there is always understanding with the mind and there is always feeling in the heart. Understanding must always be the foundation of feeling, or all we have is baseless emotionalism. But understanding of God that doesn't give rise to feeling for God becomes mere intellectualism and deadness. This is why the Bible continually calls us to think and consider and meditate, on the one hand, and to rejoice and fear and mourn and delight and hope and be glad, on the other hand. Both are essential for worship." In Him, Doc |