True Worship Part III
In the last blog we have seen that the true worship is doing the will of God. In order to kow the will of the Father, one has to develop a true and genuine relatiohsip with God. Admire him with reverance.
"O worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth"
(KJV).
Worship,
in general, has two factors: Reverence that is love and Adoration. Adoration
means experiencing the love of God with a wow feeling. In most of our prayers,
we miss out this wow feeling because our soul is very dry and parched and
devoid of love.
Without
love, there is no worship at all.
Worship is part of Love
In
Mark 12: 28-33
One
of the teachers of the law asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the
most important?”
“The
most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O my
people, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment
greater than these.”
“Well
said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and
there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding
and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more
important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Remember the burnt
offerings and sacrifices are part of the worship. And worship is if you like I
shall put it this way, part of love.
If
I were to meet you and boldly say that you do not love God, you would be
offended. If I continued to reiterate that you do not love God the way God
wanted to be loved, you may cool off a bit but still angry with me for the rude
statement of truth. The fact of the matter is the commandment does not say love
your God. It says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. With all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength is the key
here. It calls for or demands an undivided and an integrated self of a person
to worship God. If you are very honest, you would agree with me that our being
is so divided and scattered, we are unable to connect our soul to the Master
and the Creator. There is nothing wrong in accepting that our souls are
disintegrated and divided between and among so many unwanted and unnecessary
things and persons. The worship with divided heart and mind is no worship at all
or probably you are worshipping an idol that you have created for
yourself.
Worship
is not about chanting of litany or singing and dancing with our emotional
upbeat. Neither is it reciting a set of prayers nor how much one dumps in the
dumb box as an offering. It is about the deep relationship with the Creator. It
is a lifestyle. It is our DNA. It is our breath. Jesus said "Anyone who
loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves
their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37. Could
anyone of you say that you love God above all and above everything?
Worship is Love
Therefore,
worship is love. What kind of love. A love that is above all for God and God
alone is the love God wants. He is the first and the last and Alpha and Omega
in your life. The true worship is a love of the soul expressed through the
lifestyle of holiness. Without love, there is no worship. No wow feeling. No
adoration and no reverence. Jesus sums it, all the Law and the Prophets hang on
these two commandments." Matt 22:40. Love and worship are inseparable. Without love, all worships are idol
worship.
It
is necessary that we love and worship God for He is God. We are created for Him
and to worship Him. In my earlier days of the spiritual journey, I always
doubted God’s love and questioned him whether He loved me as I read in the
scripture. I was struggling to experience His love. In my knowledge, I know
that He loves me. But unable to feel His warmth. I asked him, God, do you love
me? And He gently said, 'yes my son'. I immediately shot another question. Then
why am I unable to feel your love, Father? This time he smiled at me and said, 'you
have not learned to love the way I love you'. From that day onwards I
stopped praying and started loving him as much as I could. It made sense and I am enjoying
His presence without putting any extra effort.
Relationship with God is a prayer
Today
you need to choose between a relationship with God and prayer. If you
choose a relationship with God, then whatever you do is a prayer. While there
are lots of possibilities that one could pray without any love for God and
unable to feel His love as well. In both the cases, I dare to say one worships
the god one does not know. Be sure that you love the true and the only God.
Thank you so much brother for explaining things in such a way that one can understand it very clearly. I have never understood things so clearly as I am learning now while reading your blogs . It is very true that it's difficult to understand gods love but it's for sure that he loves us more than we do . From the day I started a practice of speaking to jesus more frequently as if I am speaking to someone my own is more beautiful and having beautiful experiences rather than just chanting prayers and asking for fulfilling our selfish demands . I may not have completely understood the love of god and his messages for his people but little by little I am learning new things and true meaning of christ our lord . Which is an eye opener for me and its wonderful. Jesus christ my lord , my brother , my true friend, you are my everything. Thank you for accepting once again who was lost in darkness but now restored once again in the name of jesus . Amen
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