The comfort zone...

When I was in sixth grade, I went youth group for the first time. I had gone to church my whole life, but this was the first time I had ever been to youth group. We started with a worship time. As they played the first song, the lights went down and people started singing. As I looked around I could see people raising their hands, falling on their knees, and dancing. This was very weird to me. I had never seen a room full of people acting this way during worship.

As I kept going to youth group, I started to understand what this was. These people were on fire for Jesus! God was working in them, and they were responding to who He is and what He was doing in their lives. This dancing and singing and kneeling before God was a response to who He was and is. For the longest time I was so uncomfortable doing any of this stuff, and then seventh grade came. I started to lead worship for my school during chapel times. This was a step towards coming out of my comfort zone.

One morning...during youth worship...I was in the congregation. I was watching as the people around me worshiped, but I felt different. I could feel God speaking to me and telling me to stop holding back. I needed to get out of the comfort zone that I was in, and I needed to respond to what God was doing in my life.

This is something that completely changed my life, and completely changed who I am today. The church has become comfortable. Each person has become comfortable. We need to step out of the comfort zone and respond to who God is in song, in dance, in falling on our knees in praise. God is good. He deserves all of our praise.

I challenge you to take that step. To worship God with everything you have. It will change your life. Forever.

We are now moving on to how we worship. This was already talked about a little bit, and it was not in the original questions, but this is very important. We might completely understand what worship is and why we do it, but we can completely miss how to worship. Raising your hands...singing...dancing...playing an instrument. Are these things the only things that you can do when you worship? NO! Like we have talked about before...we worship in everything we do as long as it is for the glory of God. Can we worship God while killing someone? No. Can we worship God by looking at porn? No. God has given us gifts to use, and we are called to use them for His glory. We can worship by painting, by speaking, by praying, by reading God's Word and pursuing Him. Walking through your life with God by your side is key to worshiping daily. We need to involve God in every move we make, and we need to constantly be praising Him for who He is. Those days that you are just having a bad day...those days where you are getting angry with everyone and everything for no reason...imagine if you let things of the world go, and you worshiped God and involved Him in every part of your life. What would your life look like?

When and where do we worship?

You want the answer? Well here it is.
We worship ALL THE TIME and we worship EVERYWHERE.

Like I said yesterday, we worship all kinds of things. Everywhere we go we are worshiping something, and that means that we are always worshiping.

God created us for a purpose, and that purpose is to worship Him in everything we do. We could be at the grocery store, and we could be worshiping God. That is why He made us. We were made for His glory and honor.

I must admit that I do not always worship God wherever I go. I will get caught up in what I am doing in my day, and I will get caught up in what I want to do. Part of worship is constantly being in connection with God. In everything we do we need to involve God.

If God gave you a gift then it is your duty to use that gift for God's glory. No matter what we do...no matter where we go...we are made to worship God. He is the creator of the universe, and He deserves every bit of our worship. Not only does He deserve it, but He also WANTS it.

God wants our worship so bad, and so we need to honor and glorify Him in everything we do.

What/Who do we worship?

A golden calf...different gods...
These are things that the people in the Bible worshiped.

Money...clothes...possessions...sports players...singers...business men and women...
These are the things and people we worship today.

Every person has worshiped something or someone other than God in their lifetime.
God has placed inside of us a "chip" of some form. Something that gives us a secret passion for Him. We have a choice...we can use that passion from deep down inside to worship God, our creator, or we can choose to worship something else.

Satan will use anything and everything to distract us from worshiping God. In heaven, Lucifer (also known as Satan) was the worship leader in heaven. After being banished from heaven, Satan is going to do anything he can to stop you from worshiping God.

We are able to look up to people, and we are able to have money and other possessions. It is the love of money and the love of those possessions that will hinder us from a relationship with God that is pure. God needs to be our main focus. We need to use that passion that He placed inside of us for Him. That is the reason He gave it to us, and He deserves our praise.

So, what would our relationship with Christ look like if we stopped worshiping these false idols?
Why not try it and find out?

Why do we worship?
Why did David worship in the streets in 2 Samuel 6:14-16?
Why did Moses worship after crossing the Red Sea?

These are all times where God was so good, and where God showed love to His people. They were responding to who God is, and they were responding to what God had done.

What about those times when everything seems to be going wrong?
Why do we worship during hardship?

Did Job worship during his hardships?
YES!

Job was in agony and had lost everything, but still he worshiped and said that he knew his Redeemer lived. He said that we knew he would see God for himself. Job had no reason to worship God other than the fact that he knew that God was still good.

In Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went through trials, but they worshiped God nonetheless. It does not matter what we are going through. God is always good, and He deserves all of our praises. He will deliver us from whatever trials we may be going through if we are faithful to Him.

So, why do we worship?
Because God is good all of the time, and everything happens for His glory. He deserves all of our praise.

What is worship? The most popular answers to this question are that worship is singing and dancing and praising God. Is this a good answer, or is there more to it? Singing and dancing are ways to worship, but it is not what worship actually is. Yes, we praise God and that is our worship, but there is more to it. Worship is a RESPONSE We respond to who God is. We respond to what God has done. Most of all, we respond to what God is doing right now. Worship happens when we are in a day to day relationship with God.  In order to respond to something, something has to have happened. When you are with God day in and day out, and you are in a true relationship with Him each day, then you will automatically respond to God's goodness. Even when things are bad you will respond.  In short, we are called to a relationship with God, and worship is our RESPONSE to that relationship.

Worship...
What is worship?
Why do we worship?
Who do we worship?
What do we worship?
When and where do we worship?

These are all questions that can be answered with short simple sentences, but are they truly honest answers?

Over the next week I am going to answer these questions. I will be honest, and would love to hear what others have to say about these questions.

The whole purpose of this blog is so that we as the Church can grow closer to God, and so that we can really live out the true meaning of worship and worship the right things.

Let's take this journey.