Worship is a lifestyle…………………

 “Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!

You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.

Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
Learn to do good.
Work for justice.

Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.”     Isa. 1: 13-17  Message Bible

 

When we go to church on a Sunday morning, it should not for our entertainment.

Worship maybe entertaining, but that’s not its purpose.  When we stand up to worship and lack a sincere, heart-felt desire to worship, then it is pointless.  The anointing is not going to fall and the presence of God is not going to come!

Worship must be more than words from our lips it must start in our hearts.  It must be a way of life.  It must be something that consumes us in every way.

I believe we have an opportunity to start fresh and have a renewal in worship.  In order to do so we, all, must understand who God is.  He longs to enhance our relationship with Him.  Worship is the key that unlocks the door to His presence.

Granted God is far greater than anything we can comprehend.  But we can understand His nature and the nature of His relationship with us.

Worship is the "thank you" that refuses to be silent!

Worship is the voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, by the delivered to the Deliverer.

We should always root our worship in prayer.

Prayer needs to be the backbone of your spiritual life. Without pray all other facets of your spiritual life will wilt.

Sadly, many believers too often are too busy to pray or forget to pray.  If we do not root our spiritual lives in prayer and without this underlying foundation, we will never fully accomplish the plans and purposes of God. We can never see the changes God desires without prayer. We can never see a worship renewal without prayer.

Without prayer, our worship will lack the anointing, strength and foundation that it gives.

Jesus Himself modeled the necessity of prayer.

Luke, said that "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” If such prayer was necessary for Jesus, how much more important is it for us?

But prayer is hard work and people are lazy.

Before we can see a renewal in our worship, we must first root our lives in prayer, knowing that God’s word is true when it says in John 5:14-15: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him.”

Prayer needs to be the bedrock of our worship. To see a worship renewal in our lives and in our Church, we need to root it in prayer.