“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12:34
Recently, Pastor Lincoln said something profound during worship “We were all designed to worship something. Worship is not our problem, it’s what we worship that is the issue.” To be honest, I have been chewing on this idea that our whole life is an act of worship to something. And to get down to it, we truly worship what we love. We study and get to know the things we are driven toward whether out of interest or how it makes us feel. We point ourselves towards and unknowingly worship what we love.
Throughout my Christian life I have always thought of worship as that thing that happened on Sundays during church or at a concert with a worship band. It was not until a few years ago that verses like Romans 12:1 where Paul instructs believers to make their bodies a living sacrifice, or where Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
So, I started examining my priorities and asking myself if I am bringing “burnt offerings” on a Sunday and then worshipping other things in my life throughout the week. What I have found is that over time as my love for Jesus and my relationship with Him has grown, my priorities reflect kingdom minded living more and more and I realize that this is a lifetime of adjusting and reorienting in order that God is my focus of worship and priority rather than myself or the things that make me momentarily happy or comfortable.
I want to bring God the Father glory in what I do daily; my job, my relationships, how I steward my body and mind. I want people to understand His goodness whether I share it with them directly or by my actions, words and presence. I want people to walk in the freedom that I have found and in the peace that comes from knowing, trusting, and relying on the Holy Spirit. I want to rightly apply the Word of God to my life and allow the Holy Spirit to change me so that I look more and more like the being that God created me to be.
What you prioritize daily in your heart and mind IS your aim and that is ultimately where your heart lies. Your response to the gospel IS your worship. Your love for kingdom purposes is a response to the goodness that God has lavished on you. So today as you sit in this time with the Lord, I challenge you to partner with the Holy Spirit and examine your priorities and ask Him what does and does not align with His purposes. Where are you worshiping something else other than our great God?
Listening Prayer: Ask Holy Spirit to help you to bring God into the center of your daily worship. Ask for a deeper love and knowledge of the gospel that would inspire deeper relationship with Jesus, pointing your heart toward kingdom purposes. Give permission for the Lord to sift you and highlight the other things that have your attention and ultimately your worship.
Prayer:
Father, I sit here and offer myself up to you today as an act of worship. I surrender my heart’s desires to you. I ask you to purify my heart and my mind. Help me to be present with you Holy Spirit in my comings and my goings throughout the day. Grow me in my love for you and show me how to express that in my conversations and in my daily priorities. Would you be glorified in my inner thought life as well as what my words say, and my actions do. You are worthy of every part of my life. I love you and I trust you. And I desire to worship you in all I do. Amen.
Resources:
You Are What You Love; The Spiritual Power of Habit, Book by James K.A. Smith
Bible Verses on Offering, Love and Worship:
Hebrews 13:16
“But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
Psalm 4:5
“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord.”
Colossians 3:12-15
“Therefore, as the elect of God holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, if anyone has a complaint against another’even as Christ forgave you, so you must do. But above all these things put on love which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you were called in one body’ and be thankful.”
Luke 6:45
“A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.”
Worship Songs