Quotes about Worship

For centuries this psalm was sung on the road as throngs of people made the ascent to Jerusalem for festival worship. Our imaginations readily reconstruct those scenes. How great to have everyone sharing a common purpose, traveling a common path, striving toward a common goal, that path and purpose and goal being God.

Every time we worship our minds are informed, our memories refreshed with the judgments of God, we are familiarized with what God says, what he has decided, the ways he is working out our salvation.

Psalm 134, The final Song of Ascents, provides the evidence. The way of discipleship that begins in an act of repentance concludes in a life of praise.

Love is the most characteristic and comprehensive act of the human being. We are most ourselves when we love; we are most the People of God when we love. But love is not an abstract word defined out of a dictionary. In order to love maturely we have to live and absorb and enter into this world of salvation and freedom, find ourselves in the stories, become familiar with and follow the signposts, learn the life of worship, and realize our unique identity as the People of God who love.

One person says, "I don't feel like worshiping; therefore I am not going to church. I will wait till I feel like it and then I will go." Another says, "I don't feel like worshiping; therefore I will go to church and put myself in the way of worship." In the process she finds herself blessed and begins, in turn, to bless.

The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is "What is the chief end of man?" What is the final purpose? What is the main thing about us? Where are we going, and what will we do when we get there? The answer is "To glorify God and enjoy him forever".

The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, "deny yourself" congregation.

The way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do. In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God.

If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship...Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.

Authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life. The proclamation of God's word and our response to God's Spirit touches everything that is involved in being human: mind and body, thinking and feeling, work and family, friends and government, buildings and flowers.

Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week.

GOD, you are my God. I celebrate you. I praise you.