Our Eternal Obligation to Worship

The Wednesday feature of the Worldly Saints blog is a Scriptural meditation whereby I take a verse or passage I have been pondering lately and seek to edify my readers with it’s promises, encouragements, warnings, rebukes, etc.

John Calvin once wrote, “The most holy service that we can render to God is to be employed in praising His name.” That is a good way to put it; worshipping God is our profession and calling. And it is the highest thing we can do for our Creator. To dedicate our lives to elevating His name is to be our vocation in all that we do (I Cor 10:31).

Worshipping God is not an easy work. It takes careful thought, practice, planning, a familiarity with the Scripture and a relationship with God. In his commentary on the Book of Psalms, James Montgomery Boice gives us these four characteristics of worship in his commentary on the Psalms:

1. Worship is work. Our culture is a fun, entertaining, thoughtless and effortless culture. Unfortunately, when we gather for worship we expect the same thing. We expect everything to go as planned, we expect our emotions to be there, we expect no distractions to bother us, etc. Worship is work. It takes disciplined effort to make every moment an act of worship.

2. Worship engages and must engage the mind. To know the God you are worshipping, you must understand and think about His nature. Worship is not happening unless you know who God is. It is an activity that must engage the brain.

3. Worship occurs because God’s Bible exists. God reveals Himself to us in the Scripture first and foremost. Without attention and study of it, your worship will be weak, shallow and infrequent. We worship God because He is there.

4. Worship is personal. In other words, no one can make you do it. In fact, if someone is forcing you to worship you are probably living hypocritically. You must engage yourself. It is something you choose to do.

I would add a 5th to this list.

v. Worship is eternal. It is not an activity relegated to life on this earth. It is a activity saved for the intermediate state, the new heavens and new earth, etc. Eternity will be filled with worship.

Consider Psalm 146 – “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the LORD!”

We have before us reasons to praise God … eternally. As if we needed to be told why to worship God, the psalmist assumed nothing and delivers some needed reminders for our worship in Psalm 146.

Worshipping God is why we were born on earth, it is why we continue to be given life and it is why we will spend eternity with Him. But worship – although it is our purpose – is a decisive choice we make each and every moment of our lives. I wish I could say that worship comes naturally and we don’t ever have to think about it, but that is not true and those moments are rare. Worship is a choice. Steve Lawson has written,

“Praising God is a choice. It is an intentional choice of the will to magnify God in every circumstance and situation of life. Sometimes our trials momentarily obscure our view of God and threaten to steal away the praise that belongs exclusively to God. Whenever the tribulations of life mount, we must maintain our God-centered focus and choose God-enthralled praise of the Lord. We must never allow our praise to be controlled by our circumstance. Instead, we must allow our praise to control how we respond to our circumstances. Let us always choose praise. We have every reason to magnify the Lord’s holy name.”

If you want to be the type of person who responds to trials and sufferings with worship like the psalmist, participate in praising Him as often as possible now when things are rosy. Then, and only then, will the discipline of worship develop in your life. Get used to worshipping God; it is our eternal activity.