Many people go to
church to worship God. Denominational differences in Christianity may involve
different styles of worship. But what is worship essentially? What should
worship be? How do we worship God? We try to love God and all that he stands
for. Love is the beginning and the end of worship. To worship we must love God
with all our hearts and minds. And when we do that, we will desire to be with
him always. He will pervade our hearts and minds. Every thought and every
feeling will pass through his being. And when people meet us while this is
going on, they will see God in us.
To worship God is to
be in love with God. Worship is romance of the highest kind. The human being in
love with God is what worship is. How can such love be expressed? How can a
visible human be in love with an invisible God? To love God in this way is
possible only when we love what God loves. And God loves the world. God loves
his creations. To love God, we should love what he created. We should love one
another. We should love the other person as we love ourselves. And we should
love all other forms of life that we see around us. We should love this
beautiful earth and take good care of it, just as we take care of our own bodies.
When we do all this, we are worshipping God, who is the reason for everything.
To love God means to
love what God loves. And God loves us all just as we are. We should learn to
love like God. And we should learn from God, who will teach us to love, when we
welcome him into our hearts. God will come and stay within us and teach us how
to love what we once could not love. He will teach us to love our enemies, and
care for those who do not care for us. He will show us how to love, even when
we face opposition and rejection. He will enable us to go on loving, even when
our love is not returned. This is the kind of love we need to learn, if we want
to worship God.
We do not worship God
by reading the Bible studiously. We worship God by practising the love that the
Bible reveals. We need to experience the love of God, and we need to share it
with others. We do not worship God by merely attending church. We worship God
by loving one another, not only in the worship place, but also outside it. We
should particularly focus on loving those who are outside church. The people of
God should actively love those who do not know God. We reveal God to others,
only by loving them, as God himself loves us.
So, to worship God we
should love others, just as they are, without trying to transform them. Only
the love of God can transform people. So, we should learn to love like God, and
let that love do its miraculous work in the people we love. We should not judge
others unfairly, and we should always remember our own sins, when we try to
point out the sinsa of others. To worship God, we should be conscious of God's
atoning love all the time. We cannot let a sinful conscience separate us from
God. For we will sin as long as we live in this world. Let our sins not
separate us from God. We should remember that nothing can separate us from the
love of God. Not only should we know this, but we should also actively receive
that love daily by approaching God repentantly. We should also love God back by
loving what he loves, with his own kind of love, which he will teach us, as we
continue to walk with him.
Samuel Godfrey
George