[A ‘Tuesday Challenge’ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during October 2024]
During the past few weeks we have been encouraged to think of worship as more than just singing songs on a Sunday morning. We heard five sermons exploring the impacts of a wider concept of worship.[1] Worship should:
- engage our whole lives
- offer us fresh insight
- transform our ordinary actions
- inspire our everyday communication
- focus our wavering hearts
No doubt, when we heard those sermons we felt a desire to apply them but now, a few weeks later, has that resolution passed the same way as so many others? In short, do the words that we sing on Sunday still ring true on Tuesday morning?
What is worship? Here is a definition from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library: [Worship is] Homage rendered to God which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being. Such worship was refused by Peter and by an angel. The same source then goes on to set out nine characteristics of worship, all of which are worthy of further study.[2]
Is there a distinction between praise and worship? Praise can be more general; we can praise all sorts of animate and non-animate things. We might praise a person or a team, a restaurant or a recipe, an animal or even ourselves. By contrast worship should be addressed only to God. During his period of temptation Jesus answered his tempter:
It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’
Luke 4 v8 [NIVUK]
Time spent in worship is never wasted. Irrespective of the urgencies of every-day life, God will ensure that we recover the time spent with him. We might encounter shorter than expected delays in our daily routine or find a more efficient way to do something but in some way God will repay the time invested with him.
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten
Joel 2 v25 [NIVUK]
Worship does not have to be onerous or in a specific format but it does have to be sincere. Think back to the words that we sang on Sunday morning. Would we have said them if they hadn’t been part of a song?
Worship should be addressed to God but it should not leave us unchanged. If we have spent time with God then our lives and our actions will show it. Consider this advice written some 140 years ago:
Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.
William D. Longstaff
References:
[1] Listen again online
[2] Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.
Bible dates:
Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.
Horley Baptist Church onlineHBC main site
Confidential prayer link
Link to Recent Reflections
Link to Index of Bible Passages
Last week’s reflection: Words Are All I Have
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys