Worship (Part 2)

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."
-Psalm 103:1
      At first I was going to only make one post on worship, but the story I told last time was much longer than I had expected. This post is going to be more like what I normally do, but I will definitely try to tell more stories in my blog because of the positive feedback last time. Last time I mentioned that worship is revering and honoring something. Worship is a word normally reserved for God, but it is definitely possible to worship something other than God. What do I mean by this?
      When most people hear the word "worship", they will think of people singing hymns or other songs to God. While this is definitely the most obvious form of worship, it is not the only one. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul writes "whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God". Paul is saying that we can worship God in whatever we do, as long as we do it to the glory of God. People normally don't think about eating or drinking as a form of worship, because it is just a bodily need. Even in the simplest tasks that we do, we can worship and honor God.
      It should start to make sense how we can worship things other than God. While we are not singing songs or bowing down before money, we can definitely worship it. If you always are looking to get more money, or if you find that you always want more money, you can start to worship it. We have to very careful when we look at what we want and do. What you worship reflects what you believe. If I worship God, I believe that He exists and that He is worthy of my worship. If I worship money, I believe that money can solve my problems and is worthy of my thoughts and effort.
      When we worship God in song, it can be empty worship. I started to notice that I had this problem when I was in praise team in youth group. Instead of focusing on worshiping God, I was worried about how the worship team sounded. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, because a praise team should sound good, that shouldn't have been consuming my thoughts. What I should have been concerned with is whether I was truly worshiping God with all my heart, and whether the worship team was leading others to true worship.
      If you are in a worship team, I encourage you to read this next section carefully and think it over. Even if you are not, you should still read anyway. I believe that the first job of a worship team is to worship God. While this sounds incredibly obvious, I know from experience that it is very easy to become preoccupied with music rather than with worshiping God. The second priority of a worship team is to lead others to worship. This means making sure the music sounds good and isn't too flashy where it will distract people from worship. The best way to do this however, is to worship God yourself. If people see that you are not worshiping God, they probably won't either. Don't take this to mean that you have to lift your hands or close your eyes or sway back and forth. While these are great expressions of worship, they can be meaningless also. Just worship God to the best of your ability, and people will follow. If people don't follow, it shouldn't matter, because the only thing on your mind at that time is worshiping God.
      Be careful what you worship and how you worship. If you find that you are consumed by something; money, a hobby, a person, or anything but God, ask yourself if you value that more than God. God is the only person worth all your effort and praise. He is the only one who has saved you and sacrificed everything just so He could be with you. Also ask yourself if you are worshiping God with all that is within you. Pray that your worship would be pleasing to God, and make every effort to worship God everyday.
-Smart