Part 3: Worship. Get to know God.

Maybe sometimes the reason we struggle to worship is because we lose sight of the one we are worshiping. We forget – not on a basic level of ‘we worship God’ – but on a deeper level of ‘who is God’. The object of our worship must be right if our worship is to be acceptable.

“An intimate knowledge of the person of God is perhaps the greatest motivation to true, overflowing, whole-life worship. When we begin to know God as He is, our response has to be that of magnifying Him, giving Him glory for who He is and what He does for us.”

I think that’s why it gets frustrating when we are spending little time in the word, maybe not attending church regularly. We start to lose sight of Gods attributes, we aren’t delving into his truths, and we aren’t learning about who He is or what He has done! Let’s start by reading Hosea 6:6, “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” That statement elevates the knowledge of God to a position of supreme importance. It means that true worship consists not of rituals and other externals (like sacrifices, burnt offerings and formal liturgy) but rather is grounded in the crucial matter of knowing and loving the true God. It looks beyond externals and goes straight to the heart. How cool is that> that’s another reason why sometimes when we sin, God is so gracious and merciful to forgive his true children because he see’s their heart. He see’s true repentance and he is understanding towards the trials of temptations and our moments of weakness… but now back to the point. Psalm 51 says, “O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; you are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Be real. Don’t and try and put on a smile and pretend to have it all together, God see’s right through that anyways. God desires our hearts to pour out before Him, truly vulnerable and honest. It’s not always about externals. These are just a few of many verses that go to show how unique our God is; but of course He is unique, He is the only true God. Many other religions (even some confused Christians) involve much of trying to earn god’s favor. They focus on externals, and for the wrong reasons. They believe that if they work hard, give more, act better, sin less – then their god will show them greater favor. They try to earn their way to heaven through externals – there is NO heart in that. Our God, however, is so much more amazing then just externals, he see’s the heart – and he knows that a true heart that beats for Him will reflect itself through actions (through externals). We don’t have to EARN Gods favor, his love for us is greater then that, and in fact; we don’t have to work our way to heaven because he paid the price for that. This is just another incredible thing about our God that should cause us to fall before him in true genuine worship. As we reflect on the truths of God – how could we only worship out of routine, or how could we not desire to worship at all…

“If you are consumed with looking for money, if you are devoted to the pursuit of success, if you are seeking anything else more than you desire a true and accurate knowledge of God, you will never deeply understand Him or see His glory.”

Maybe the struggle to worship God as he deserves is not only because we may not know enough about Him, or desire to know more, but maybe because our focus is on something else altogether! Some people seek education, success, money, wealth, materials, beauty, popularity etc. I think we’ve all heard this before… no matter what you are seeking, if you are seeking it MORE then you desire a true knowledge of God – you will be in deep waters. You may not ever get what you seek, maybe you won’t ever get rich, popular, perfect or whatever else, but you certainly WILL get pulled away from God in the process, whether you achieve your goals or not. Ultimately, what do you want more; to know more of God in his holiness and glory, or to achieve some earthly badges of success… the things of the world will pass away, what will you be left with> Don’t let your identity be found in something you can lose, your faith in God and your relationship with Him with last forever. What do you put before God> I think we all struggle time and again with something, maybe its one of those things previously stated, maybe its your family, your fun, your friends or something else. The bible says clearly, you cannot love both God and money; you must only serve one master (Matthew 6:24). Our hearts were created to be devoted to only one, if we put anything above our devotion to God, eventually our hearts will be fully devoted to the other. It’s a process, a downhill spiral; put your focus on something else and desire it more then you desire God and eventually you will no longer hunger for God at all. In the end, if you are focused on anything above God, you will be given over to your cravings. Your worship to God will struggle because your focus isn’t on Him. Your life’s focus is on something shallow and meaningless and God WILL NOT share your hearts attention.

There is one other reason I want to touch on (although of course there are many more) as to why we may struggle to worship God. I think in our churches, in our walks of Faith, when we lose sight of the Bibles importance in our day to day lives, we start to lose sight of who God is, as already mentioned. But by doing this, we also might start to bring God down to our level; we start to make him into something lesser than what He truly is. We get into trouble when we try to make God too much like what we know. No one perfectly understands God. When we aren’t studying the word, or attending a solid biblically sound church, we start to get the wrong idea about whom God is. Maybe we think we start to ‘get’ Him. Maybe we start to view him as the little angel on our shoulder, our ‘buddy’, our ‘daddy’ etc. Maybe some of you reading this think I’m off for saying it’s irreverent to give GOD such titles as daddy, poppa or so on… but it is and that’s the blatant truth. God is WAY bigger then you, or me or anything our minds can imagine. You cannot bring Him down to our level; you cannot form him to fit into your hands, or into your style of beliefs. So maybe this is a cause of a struggle to worship God, or maybe this is the cause of false-worship, either way – it brings me back to the point of: we must get to know GOD as HE reveals Himself in His WORD! There is no excuse… get over your lazy and distracted self – if you want more of God, if you want a true and genuine and passionate faith – where your worship is thriving and it’s sincere – you need to TRY.

1Chronicles 28:9 David tells his son,

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father,

and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind.”

(Know God, and when you know Him, serve Him willingly and eagerly…

David continues…)

“For the Lord searches all hearts, and understands

every intent of the thoughts. If you seek him,

He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him.

He will reject you forever”.

David doesn’t just say, “Serve God whole-heartedly and willingly”, no, he starts with the more important part, “Know the God of your father”. If you don’t truly KNOW God, why would you have any drive to serve him> If you don’t truly have a passion to have a relationship with God, why would you revolve your life around him>

            To end off this part, I want to reiterate the extreme importance of getting to KNOW God. Although we will never know Him fully, we can learn SO much about Him through the Word. He purposely allows us to see his attributes and a little peek of who He is through the word so that our worship may thrive. Through a knowledge and understanding of the word, we will be rooted in a solid foundation and our worship will not be meaningless, empty, boring, false or misguided. 

*anything in blue is a quote from John MacArthur: Worship,

the ultimate priority*