Spiritual Practice: Worshiping with Our Hearts

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
13      The Lord says:

“These people come near to me with their mouth

    and honor me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me

    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

14      Therefore once more I will astound these people

    with wonder upon wonder;

the wisdom of the wise will perish,

    the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” (Isaiah 29:13-14, NIV)

 

REFLECTIONS:
The words of this passage hit home. Each of us have sat in church with our mind far from God or prayed a familiar prayer with our lips and not our heart. There is beauty in familiarity, but it can also lead to boredom or, worse, contempt. It is easy to get into a rut and not bother to interrupt our routine with the real work of worship. Others of us may have totally given up on the idea of entering into the presence of God or don't really believe such experiences are possible or even helpful.

Hopefully, the work you have done during over the last several days of seeking to worship God in your daily life will have helped you to better distinguish God's voice and presence and appreciate just why such seeking is so necessary. So this week, when you attend the Sunday morning worship gathering, go with every expectation of meeting and worshiping God, to the best of your ability.

Start by arriving at Sunday's worship gathering ten or so minutes early so that you can fellowship and sit and prepare yourself. Open your heart to God; give thanks for the many gifts given to God's people, particularly the gift of Jesus. Pray for the worship leaders, that they may feel God's hand upon them and speak and lead boldly. Then pick one or two people in the congregation to particularly pray for, that each may experience God's presence. Think about what it means to be in God's house of worship. Focus on singing the songs directly to God and listening for him in the Scripture readings and the words preached. When you return home, you might want to write down your thoughts and feelings about worship and how approaching worship this way did or did not change your experience of it.


WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and I promised to keep things short today.