Man must be sufficiently enlightened to the object of his worship, lest he become an idolater, which the Bible condemns without any ambiguity. To be an idolater is to worship any person or object other than God Himself. True worship is always exclusive: it begins and ends with God. He is both the Source and the object of our worship.
The main purpose of man is to glorify God. Whenever man’s first quest becomes his own glorification, he places himself outside the divine will and then sin takes birth. In this distortion, the creature takes the place of the Creator, and the glory of the incorruptible God is changed into a lie (Romans 1:23-25).
Romans 1: 23-25 « 23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. » KJV
The worship of Caesar and the sensual glorification of the flesh in the Roman world are an illustration.
We should begin by taking stock of the things that we have placed on the throne of our heart. For God is extremely severe with false religious worship, which is nothing but idolatry in His eyes, or a veneration addressed to any person other than Him. For this reason our worship, veneration or prayers should not be addressed to an ancestor, a Virgin, a saint, a man of God or any other creature in heaven or on earth. Even simply bowing to what we have just enumerated is already, in itself, an act of idolatry according to God. Our homes should be places where God alone is at the heart of our worship.
We should not put forward our emotions and feelings when we worship, even if we can let them express themselves freely, since they have been given to us by God. Let us not worship so that our feelings and emotions are exalted, but so that God alone is exalted and receives our adoration as a sacrifice of good smell which will please Him.
What are our real motivations?
In worship, the very person of God is more important to us than His gifts. A crucial question immediately confronts us: what is the deep motivation of our love for God?
In worshipping, we should always seek to please and satisfy the heart of our Heavenly Father first, rather than to obtain satisfaction for our own personal needs. As we expect to receive selfless love from our children, so too does the heavenly Father desire that we attach ourselves to Him rather than to His gifts.
Worshipping God is not flattering Him, in the hope of getting something from Him. When we seek the presence of God, we should not come to receive a blessing, but rather to bring our worship as an offering.
To worship is not to bargain: “Lord, I adore you, but then you will bless me, won’t you?” In our praise and worship, the only thing that will please God is our heart, the one with which we praise and worship Him. It is not the form that prevails, but the substance, namely the love we bear in our hearts.
The purpose of Christian gatherings
The purpose of Christian gatherings is to build up the Body of Christ. We are edified by instructing and exhorting one another on the foundation of the Word, through the exercise of the gifts which the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon us, as prescribed by the Scriptures.
In some sense the gathering of the church anticipates the heavenly assembly of God’s people. We gather together to urge us to obey God in our daily lives, to glorify Him and to contribute to the advancement of His work of salvation in the world.
The responsibility for praise and worship should not be on the Pastor or the leader of the praise group; it is the responsibility of each person to bring up a “sacrifice of praise” to God. Each of us has a responsibility to prepare for worship.
Praise and worship cannot be limited to one day of the week, when the community gathers to worship God; nor can we praise God one day in the week and live as we want the other six days.
The best place where we must worship God is in us, who now are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Then we go to meet other citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven to continue to worship our God together with one heart. We do not go to a place of worship to worship God, or even to enter into His presence, but to CONTINUE to worship Him and to remain in His presence. By sacralizing the church as a building, we are neglecting the true temple, that is ourselves.
