SYNOPSIS: A.W. Tozer said, “We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.” An everlasting preoccupation—that’s what worship is. That’s your highest purpose, your very reason for being. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms, written in the mid 1600’s as a tool for studying doctrine, asks and answers 196 theological questions. The very first question is this: What is the chief and highest end of man? And the answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever. That is why you exist: To worship God and enjoy him forever! Today, and each day hereafter, make sure you are fulling your rai·son d’ê·tre—you reason for being!
Project 52 – Weekly Scripture Memory // Romans 12:1
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.
Isaac Watts was a prolific author, writing over 50 books, more than half on theology. He is best remembered, however, for his hymns, writing over 700. Even today, three centuries after he died, most hymnals have at least twenty of his songs. It is said that as Watts was dying he was reciting one of his favorites: “I’ll Praise My Maker While I Breathe.” Isaac Watts was captivated by the worship of God.
God has created us with a tremendous capacity, as well as a duty, to worship him. He wants—and deserves—that we, too, would praise our Maker while we breathe.
Victor Hugo said of his pastor: “He didn’t just study God, he was dazzled by him.” That is want God wants—and deserves—from us: To be dazzled by him.
A.W. Tozer said, “We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.” An everlasting preoccupation—that’s what worship is. That’s our highest purpose, our very reason for being. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms, written in the mid 1600’s as a tool for studying doctrine, asks and answers 196 theological questions. The very first question is this: What is the chief and highest end of man? And the answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.
That is why we were created: To worship God and enjoy him forever…
To be agents of praise…
To be dazzled by his being…
To be captivated by his presence…
To be everlastingly preoccupied with worship!
That’s why you and I must fight to maintain, or perhaps reclaim, a Biblical understanding and a right experience of worship as God wants—and deserves—in our lives and our church. Paul is urging that in Romans 12:1,
“I appeal to you therefore, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.” (Amplified)
Did you catch that? You and I must purpose to offer our whole life to God. Not just lip service, but life service. God-pleasing worship is more than inspired music and enthusiastic singing; it means bringing everything we are and everything we have to God in a joyful recognition of his mercy. William Barclay gave one of the best definitions of worship I’ve ever come across when he wrote,
True worship is the offering to God of one’s body, and all that one does every day with it. Real worship is not the offering to God of a liturgy, however noble, and a ritual, however magnificent. Real worship is the offering of everyday life to him, not something transacted in a church, but something which sees the whole world as the temple of the living God. As Whittier wrote: ‘“For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken: The holier worship which he deigns to bless, Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, And feeds the widow and the fatherless.” A man may say, “I am going to church to worship God,” but he should also be able to say, “I am going to the factory, the shop, the office, the school, the garage, the locomotive shed, the mine, the shipyard, the field, the byre, the garden, to worship God.”
We are not just to honor and worship God with our words on Sundays only, but also with our entire existence in all we do from Monday through Saturday. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
That means how we rest, play, handle money, feed our minds, care for our bodies and engage relationally is all worship! Whether it’s the fruit of our lips on Sunday or the fruit of our lives on Monday, the kind of worship that pleases God means we must always bring our “A game” and place it before God “… as a living sacrifice…” It’s the least—and best—we can do. It’s what God wants—and deserves!
That’s what God wants—and deserves—the sacrificial surrender of our everyday lives to him in worship.
We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal. (J.I. Packer)
Thanks Ray, I had just read Romans 12 today as it was on my heart. Thanks for the reinforcement of God's Word.