The concept of worship can be difficult to describe. Often the word worship is used as short-hand, catch-all phrase to describe a Sunday service, a style of music, or singing together as the Church.
When we try to define or find the edges of worship, we quickly realize there are no borders to worship because no aspect of our life is free of worship. Worship is the right response of our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to God’s revelation of Himself. It does not turn on and off, nor is it more engaged during singing than any other time of life. Worship is aimed, as Harold Best brilliantly articulates in ‘Unceasing Worship.’
Worship always begins with God.
We do not choose God, He chose us.
We love because He first loved us.
Worship is a rhythm of revelation and response.
God reveals and we have no choice but to respond: ‘Therefore brothers, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, this is your spiritual worship.’ Romans 12:1
So if worship is more than a song, and all of life is worship, why do we gather and worship together? There are certainly a number of reasons: God is worthy of our worship, He delights in and inhabits the praises of His people, we are told not to forsake the gathering of the people of God, and as Charles Spurgeon reminds us: ‘Man’s heart is never large enough to hold either its joys or its sorrows.’ We gather to share in the joy, and sorrow of lives lived in worshipful response to God throughout the week. We gather to catch a greater glimpse of who God is and be sent out allowing ‘joy to escape.’
Corporate worship reminds us that all of life is lived before the face of God. And we are invited to behold Him and be conformed more closely to His image in all of the moments which seem less than worshipful.
With every breath, with every nation, for every generation, for all eternity - worship is our lives responding to the beauty of our God and King.
