Living Out Worship

"Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs." Psalm 100:2

It is easy in today's contemporary Christian music world to get numb to the meaning of worship. With Christian bands, concerts, and radio stations constantly amusing with song and joining fellow Christians in worship around the globe, the words that come forth from the lips of the saved begin to sound like a clanging cymbal to many.

After considering why it is when a new worship song comes out people are drawn to it and excited, I came to the realization that as with any type of music people often look at these precious worship songs as nothing more than mere words on a page or a good melody strung together. What is worship? The Webster dictionary defines worship as a verb, " to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power". The Word of God describes worship with various words including "sacrifice, praise, honor, and glory".

From generations past until today, followers of our Lord have knelt, raised hands, and lifted their voices high in worship to the King. But how many times were those words sung without understanding, without true devotion, and with a numbness to His glory? Recently in True North, we began singing a song by Eowghen Heaslip titled All That Matters which includes phrases like "you are all that satisfies, all that gives me life, you are my portion, my only pation, Jesus you mean EVERYTHING to me". As I listened to the praises of the people among me raising up their voices in unison and singing out these words, I listened carefully to the words being echoed and in one swift moment realized I too had fallen victim to just singing out words. I realized that if I was going to be singing these words such as, "you are my only passion" that I had to live that out. I couldn't just sing that to my King and than later forget the prayer that I had just cried out. I needed to live out that worship in my daily life at all times.

As disciples of the Lord we mustn't forget why we sing, we must never become clanging cymbals as we repeat phrase after phrase of a worship song, and may we never sing words without meaning our praise, as disciples we are called to worship the Lord always, living it out everywhere we go, in everything we do, no matter where we are or what we may be going through!

"Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy." PsaLm 99:9