True or false?  Are you in danger of worshipping a false God?  Are you a true worshiper of the true and living God?  If your conception of God is not the same image of God that the Bible presents, you are worshipping a false image (Exodus 20:4-6).

A.W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us .”

The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshiper will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship.
– John 4:23

Worship has been a hot topic in the church for the last couple decades, even to the point of being called “worship wars.”  The only encouraging thing about this battle within the church is that it means that someone, somewhere believes something.  Unfortunately, most of the battles fought have everything to do with personal preference and very little to do with God’s expectations .

Worship matters.  I stole this title from Bob Kauflin because it is so relevant.  I hope this post is helpful in that it discusses worship matters, but also in convincing you that worship matters!

God has revealed in His Word that he cares about worship.  It matters to him.  It ought to matter to us.  In Leviticus 9, Aaron worships “by the book.” The glory of God appears, God sends down fire from heaven that consumes his offering, and the people shout and fall on their faces.  God accepted Aaron’s offering.  It honored and glorified God because it was according to the very specific (and morbid to the 21st Century mindset) details that God had laid out for the priests.  This is a nice passage that shows that God is particular and even jealous about the way he commands to be worshiped .

However, Leviticus 10 gives us a even more shocking picture of God’s passionate pursuit of his own glory and how serious he takes worship.  Aaron’s sons get it in their mind that they know how to worship God better than God does.  They offer up incense to God in a manner that was contrary to God’s decree.  Once again fire falls from heaven.  But this time, the offering is not consumed, Aaron’s sons are!  God takes worship seriously. So should you .

A little exercise:  Take a moment to consider the one thing that makes you most happy.  Hold this activity in your mind.  If it’s a person, think of spending time with that person, etc…  Now, imagine that you take tomorrow off and do that activity all day long.  Pretty exciting?!  Now imagine taking two whole weeks and that’s all you can do is that activity.  A year.  Fifty years.

How long do you think it would take for you to grow immensely tired of that task?  At first what was a delight slowly becomes duty and ultimately drudgery.  This is the way any task in this world is.  There is nothing in this world that can truly satisfy you, fulfill you, satiate you, complete you.  That’s because you were made for another world!

“If I find within myself desires which nothing in the world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
– C.S. Lewis

God is seeking true worshipers who will worship him in Spirit and truth.  Are you one of those worshipers?

Over the next four posts, I want to show four crucial truths about True Worship from Isaiah 6:1-8.

• Worship Matters Part Two:  True Worship Begins with the Bible
• Worship Matters Part Three:  True Worship Requires Repentance
• Worship Matters Part Four:  True Worship Is Jesus-Driven
• Worship Matters Part Five:  True Worship Motivates Mission

Until then, chew on these:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
– Romans 12:1-2

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
– Hebrews 12:28-29