Some American Christians are obsessed with showy worship. We love the lights, the fog machine, the drums — all of it! It’s easy for us to assume that if we are caught up in a flurry of emotion then we’re close to God. We mistake how we feel in the moment for how close we are to the Spirit of God. However, when we think that way, all it results in is us chasing one emotional high after another, rather than truly following and “walking in step with the Spirit,” (Galatians 5:15).
Instead of this running after emotions, the Bible describes a people whose worship flows from their walk of obedience. Paul writes in Romans 12, “Therefore, 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.”
What Paul means here is that in view of Jesus on the cross we are meant to offer our bodies and our lifestyles sacrificially to God. Paul thinks so highly of this that he calls it our “true and proper worship!” For from this baseline of obedience we are able to experience a union with God that goes beyond the moment and instead pervades our entire bodies and our whole lives!
Imagine how different our worship services would be if we gathered in genuine celebration for the work God has been doing to make us more like him! Rather than having the expectations on the band or the worship leader to drum up emotion for us — we bank our whole worship on the work that God Himself has done and continues to do by the power of His Spirit.
This sort of worship is the worship that is expressed in response to the mighty resurrection power that God has extended to us in order to raise us from sin and death to righteousness and life – and it’s something that we can experience today if we truly present our bodies as the “living sacrifices” they were always meant to be.
Ryan Lunde
Young Adult Ministry