Worship

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Scripture:  Revelation 5:11 – 14

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

What is worship?

Dictionary.com defines it as “reverent honour and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.”[1]

Merriam-Webster defines it this way: “to honour or show reverence for…”[2]

Richard Foster, writing on the Spiritual Discipline of Worship, defines it in part this way: “It is a breaking into the Shekinah of God, or better yet, being invaded by the Shekinah of God,” where “‘Shekinah’ means the glory or the radiance of God dwelling in the midst of his people. It denotes the immediate presence of God as opposed to a God who is abstract or aloof.”[3]

On Sundays we gather for a worship service. Sometimes a church is called a place of worship. We sing worship songs. But what is it? What does it mean to worship God? Is it connected to a feeling? Is it possible to worship God when I’m not feeling it? Can I make myself worship, or does it just happen (or not happen)?

The book of Revelation includes a few visions of worship around the throne of God. Revelation 4 & 5 are particularly focused on that vision. In Revelation 7 we read of a vision of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb [that’s Jesus], robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders… and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and hour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”

This is worship. And believe it or not, worship is a Spiritual Discipline. It’s what we’re going to talk about on Sunday. As you prepare for Sunday, it might be helpful to spend some time thinking about your experience of worship. Have you ever experienced anything like what’s described in Revelation? What do you think it means to practice the Spiritual Discipline of worship? What stands in the way of experiencing worship the way it’s described in Revelation?

 

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/worship

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship

[3] Richard Foster. Celebration of Discipline, Revised Edition. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978, 1988), 159.