Day 13: Luke 2:13-14

 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,

    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” -Luke 2:13-14

Many Christians have a screwed up idea about what worship is.  Somewhere along the line, we've started to believe that worship is what we do at church on Sunday morning during the singing part.  We've been taught that worship is like the video below.

We think of worship as some sort of great musical offering to the Lord.  And I don't doubt that the scene in the field with the angels and the shepherds were along these lines, except hundreds of times more beautiful.

Most of us miss out on the opportunity to worship the Lord, though, because we wait for these kinds of times.  We wait until church on Sunday morning, when the music is good enough for us and we feel okay singing.  We miss hundreds of opportunities to worship the king because our focus on worship is so narrow.

God made each of us to be worshipers.  He made us each unique so that we can worship Him in the specific way He desired.  No one else has ever been like us and no one else will ever worship like us.  

Our approach to worship should be more like the clip below:

While we're at it, do you want to know the meaning of life?  The answer is simple.  To worship God in the way He designed us specifically to worship Him.  And to find out how to do that, we simply need to do what the little drummer boy did in the video above....look upon our King and let our admiration come bubbling out.

But we need to realize that God didn't just design us to worship Him when we decide we are going to sit down and sing.  He designed our whole lives to worship Him.  The jobs He gave us to do need to worship Him.  The way we spend our time needs to worship Him.  The family He gave us needs to operate in a way that worships Him.  The way we spend our money needs to worship Him.

We were designed to be worshipers and will always be worshiping something.  What we need to ask ourselves is are we worshiping God or are we worshiping something else?  It's easy to focus on God when we are in church on Sunday morning.  But what about when you are at work, does your work worship God or money?  Does your time at home worship God or ESPN?  Does what you choose to eat worship God or worship your own stomach?  Does the way you treat other people worship God or worship yourself?

My personal belief is that Christian maturity is measured in our ability to worship God over worshiping other things in our life.  If we focus on worship as something we only do on Sunday morning, we will never move past a very infantile relationship with Christ.  It is through worship that we get a clearer picture of who we are and who our God is.