Worshiping:

Praising and Glorifying God Daily

  Worshiping God begins with faith. Until faith is firmly planted, we remain cut off from His sovereignty. Praising the Lord goes beyond the obvious of attending church. It’s all about praising Him every day. In order for us to fully receive God’s grace, then we must be prepared and embrace Him with our hearts, souls, and minds on a daily basis. Anything less limits the difference He makes in living a righteous, just and godly existence. Without a solid commitment to Christ, the struggles of life will continue to haunt us.

 The first way to worship the Lord is believing in Christ as the savior of the world.  Belief is not a spoken action. It’s a commitment to abandoning our self-will coupled with personal exertion to seek salvation through abiding in Jesus. Without a personal desire to continue growing in the image of Christ the door to worshiping our Father remains locked. And the only one who has the key to unlocking the door to God’s kingdom is the Messiah.

The primary objective of worship is to honor God. And honoring the Lord is moving away from the worldly influences that stand in the way of glorifying Him. So, that means you have to look at your personal life and see how you are aligning your actions with His words.

The only way to honestly take an accurate self-appraisal of where your maturity in Christ lies, is to be searching, fearless and humble. It’s evaluating your attitudes and behaviors in regards to temptations that will lead you to a deeper understanding of the changes you will need to worship Christ better. It’s an inside job, and nobody else can do this for you. 

   It won’t be easy discovering the stumbling blocks that prevent you from worshiping God because pride wants you to remain distant from the Lord. Pride is a worship killer and uses many subtle ways to keep you away from Christ. Pride generates doubt and makes it tough to look within yourself. And when pride is threatened, then fear takes over causing more difficulties. Those two destructive shortcomings are too much for you to handle alone and without the aid of God, there is no way out of their paralyzing grip.  

 So, how can you move past those obstacles (pride and fear) and see the level of your worship?

   Well, the answer to that question has to do with humility and courage. Humility is the antidote to pride and courage overcomes fear. Both of those Christian principles derive from building a personal relationship with Christ. The more you center your life with God the clearer it becomes in recognizing the ways the world tries to draw you into its web of deception. And the results of your faithful obedience paves the way to worship God more and more.

   For me, this has meant a total reevaluation of the way I interact with a society full of temptations. When I first started taking a look at the things in my life that stopped me short of worshiping God, the list was long. Pride had a strong hold on me and allowed selfishness to infiltrate all areas of my life. I would spend hours watching sports and engage in all sorts of behaviors associated with team spirit. I would vigorously follow all the team’s statistics and could cite their position by position and player to player. I followed that same path with music, books, movies and social events.

   My whole life was centered in self-will, leaving no room for praising Christ. When God got my attention from the unrighteous lifestyle I was living, then it became my responsibility to see my disobedience. Here I had to rely on prayer and allow Christ’s strength to take away my fear, so I could constructively identify the infractions of my wrongfulness.

By humbling myself before God, a plan for me emerged, and a course of Christian action was exposed. I am no longer blinded to His truth and have found the Light of Christ. I’m not afraid to discover, accept and move beyond my sinful nature because it’s through the suffering that keeps me seeking God’s will.

   I still have moments where I fall back into those old ways and let them distract me worship. I know that I’m not perfect, nor do I strive for perfection. There is nothing wrong in enjoying sports, music and other things of life, but allowing them to be placed above God is wrong. In my journey with Christ, it has been a gradual progression of changing, redirecting and allowing Him to guide my attitudes.

 With Christ, I’ve been able to find the courage to stay away from those worship obstacles for longer periods of time. God has freed me from their bondage and has provided a new path for my life. I try to give Christ my best efforts each and every day, and when I fail to worship Him my conscience speaks loudly. Salvation takes away any excuses for me not to worship God daily.

      God is always watching and takes notice of the ways we interact with Christ. The Lord is pleased when our faith is actively involved with Christ. It’s by allowing Christ to guide us in all of the affairs that we are glorifying God that is an integral part of worship. Praising Christ is not to be taken lightly because our eternal lives are at stake.

   It’s by eliminating the things standing in our way of praising God that allows us to honor and glorify Him. We all know the difference Christ has made in our lives. Witnessing the powerful impact the Lord has done in our lives and those around us is all the evidence we need to worship Him each and every day. The core of worship is giving God the praise He deserves!

How do you worship God daily?