“…I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1

For many years, both as a pastor and as a member of differing congregations, I have often pondered the question: what should true worship of our God and Father look like. I have been part of the extreme formal and ritualistic part, where candles, burning incense, repetitive prayers and rituals by the priest were considered worship.

I have been part of the extreme pentecostal movement where singing, shouting, and speaking in tongues were considered to be the high points of worship. And I have been part of several denominations that worship was considered to be coming and being part of the Sunday morning singing and preaching. Today, many of the modern churches have defined worship as being all about the music that is presented and played.

And boy, how they have ramped it up. The order of the day, in what many churches call worship, is a production of loud music, accompanied with bright lights, smoke, flashing lights, and gyrating bodies. I have a relative whose full time job at a large church is to oversee the management of the music production on Sunday morning.

I attended a church where ear plugs were available.  In that same church, as they all stood to sing, I picked a seat behind a rather large lady, and sat down to keep the bright lights from blinding me. But for the main, the folks that attend these churches love it, and they call it worship: singing over and over again the same words, and raising their hands and swaying to the rhythm of the music. Is this true worship?

Let it be noted here that the child of God is born of the Spirit and is a new creature in Christ. They have received and been made partakers of the divine nature of God. The kind of so called “worship” I have just described does not in any way edify the new man in Christ; it appeals to and excites the old man: the flesh; it has nothing of true worship in it. It is the truth of God’s word that appeals to and excites the new man in Christ. So, what is true worship?

The Scripture that leads this column could not be any more simple and easy to understand. It is the offering of yourself as a living sacrifice to God: that is the true worship that pleases and is acceptable to God. To stand and sing costs you nothing; to worship God will cost you everything. Let Scripture define the meaning of true worship.

When God told Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on the mountain, Abraham set out early the next morning to do exactly what God had told him to do. When Abraham and Isaac arrived at the mountain, he told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will WORSHIP and then we will come back to you.” Genesis 22:5

There you have true worship of God defined: it is obedience to God’s word, from the heart, regardless of the cost. Isaac meant everything to Abraham; he was a miracle child, given to Abraham by God; Isaac was the heir to all the promises of God. How could God possibly ask Abraham to do such a thing? And yet, God did. Abraham offered God true worship, not by the sacrifice of Isaac, but by his obedience which came by his faith in God; trusting in God with all his heart, that God was faithful and able to raise his son back to life.

What God ask Abraham to do but didn’t let him do, God Himself did do 2000 years ago. He sacrificed His only begotten Son on Mount Calvary for your sins and mine. When we believe in Jesus as our Savior, and obey His commandments, we are offering God true worship.

Brother Bill is a Bible teacher and can be contacted at bboldham@sbcglobal.net