WHAT IS TRULY WORSHIPPING GOD?

 Don’t you get a bit scared when you read these verses and begin to wonder whether you are the primary recipient of it? 
Especially verse 8 that speaks of lip service.  It makes me wonder whether I’m apart of the people that honor God with their lips ,yet the heart is further from him or calls out the name of the Lord and yet doesn’t do his will.
 
You see, more often than not we have equated true worshipping to showing up for church and have limited our act of worship to just that. Showing up for church. Or sometimes our study of the word has become more of a habit  than an actual act of truly worshipping the Father. Or sometimes we find ourselves so quick to say all the right Jesus answers in the presence of our Christian audience, but living the opposite of what we profess when no one is watching. And for others , we’re hyper focused on our acts of service to the Lord and have overlooked the fact that our hearts have become disconnected from the Father. The one you’re doing things for , is the one you have become disconnected from.
 
I write to you not as a perfect Christian who has all the answers and methods on true worshipping , but as one who doesn’t want to be found within the scope of verse 8 of our above scripture.

Doing the will of the Father.

Mathew 7:21 NLT: Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.

What then is the will of the father?

The will of the father is clearly spelled out in Jesus’s sermon on the mount which begins from Mathew chapters 5-7.  The Beatitudes. Being the  light of the world.  Dealing with anger , adultery ,divorce, revenge and love for enemies. Giving to the needy. Teaching about prayer and fasting. Money and possessions. Judging others. Effective prayer. The golden rule. The narrow gate. Discernment ,through his analogy of the tree and its fruits. True disciples.
 
He concludes his sermon in  verse 24 when he says ‘ anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise…’ This translates to obedience. Obedience to the teachings of Jesus = doing the will of the father.
 
Now I’ll admit . This. Is. Not. At. All. Easy. It’s not. Especially when our flesh feels like responding back with a snarky comment after that colleague/relative/friend/acquaintance has just spoken to us in a way we feel belittled. Its not easy when we feel our acts of service are going unnoticed. Or when we feel prompted to give when we’d rather keep for our own security. And when we  are to love those who’ve hurt us ,even when we feel justified in our  bitterness. Its not easy and living in obedience to the will of the Father just feels like a phrase we would rather not acquaint ourselves with.
 
Yet a requisite of doing the will of the  Father , is dying to self.  And that means allowing the holy  spirit to take precedents in our day to day living. Even when it means apologizing when feeling justified with all the proper facts . We cannot of course do this by our own power. It is only through the power of the holy spirit that we can truly worship the Father by doing his will.

True worshipping is not the resume we present to people

 
 What the resume looks like:

According to the above scriptures, the Christian resume would look something like this:
Prophesied in his name
Cast out demons in his name
Performed miracles in the Lord’s name
Fasts twice a week
Gives a tenth of income as tithe
 
The modern day resume is
Sings for the Lord
Preaches for the Lord
Speaks of the Lord
A verse in the bio
Regularly attends church
Bible reading streak on point
Subscribed to 10+ christian podcasts
Does good in the Lord’s name
 
Yet verse 23 says the most shocking words.. ‘I never knew you, Get away from me …’
 
There’s nothing wrong in performing  acts of service for the Lord . At – All. The issue back then and  that seems apparent with us even now is having these achievements validate us and equating our acts of service to the Lord as truly worshipping him. It is in having an aesthetically pleasing Christian life yet our hearts are far from the Lord .
 
True worshipping is the parallel of our acts of service for the Lord and the life we live. It is in speaking about keeping the commandments of God and doing his will while also keeping them in our lives and doing his will as well. Its speaking about him  on and offstage. Its speaking about him  in the presence of an audience and in the absence of it, with people to applaud us of how kind hearted we are at  giving  and without that applause.
 
Christianity is an identity we carry daily. We do not choose when to wear it or  remove it. 

Friend, can i speak to your heart..

You see none of us does the will of the Father perfectly. We fall short one way or the other. For some , we started so well in alignment with the will of the Father , our acts if services matched the lives we were living  and then we started  flirting with the desires of the world and now we’re too distracted to notice how far we have gone, but the good God we serve is a  God who works tirelessly in reaching out to the souls and hearts of his children. Gently reminding us of his will and redirecting us when we have started going on our own way in worshipping him.

That’s it pal
Lets Pray:
Dear God , thank you. Thank you for who you are to me and thank you for consistently knocking at the doors of my heart. All in attempts to reach to my soul and remind me of what you desire in my worship of you. I ask for the Holy spirit to help and guide me as i will be doing your will and perform acts of services for you Lord. Thank you for your love.
Amen .