‘Come, let us sing to the Lord ! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods. He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today! The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness. For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw everything I did. For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’” The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land, too.’ Psalms 95:1-11 (NLT)
If worship is ascribing to God ultimate value, then a lack of worship shows the deeper heart problem of unbelief.
In worship, we give God the ultimate glory, honour, praise, adoration, and devotion due His worth. The Psalmist sings before God, thanks God, bows and kneels before God. All these expressions involve the body, mind, and emotions and engage the whole being. This is true worship. In true worship, we experience a deep sense of awe, beauty, joy, and reverence before God, and it changes and transforms us.
What stops this kind of intimate and transformative worship? Our own hearts. We all worship and were created to worship, but the question is who or what we worship. Do you recognise that there are always competing values in our lives to which we ascribe ultimate value and worth?
How do I know I worship these competing values? I know because they control my actions, emotions, and will. We will do anything to attain or achieve these values and goals. They dictate our time, money, and resources. They capture our heart and keep us preoccupied. They keep us awake at night and we feel we can’t live without them. This is a language of worship. And these values can be anything from a relationship, to career, personal goals, respect, power, acceptance, comfort, or social status.
True worship is hindered because we believe in competing values to give worth and significance. We believe in false saviours to give security and confidence. Rather than placing our complete trust in our loving Father, we look for false loves and give our hearts to them instead. We struggle with unbelief.
The key to overcoming unbelief is to first recognise your tendency to worship a false saviour in any form or function. Come to Jesus and repent of your misplaced belief and remind yourself of the beautiful gospel.
Private and public worship rekindles our heart and recalibrates us to the gospel. When we meditate on scripture and gather as a community to worship, God leads us to a heightened experience and awareness of who He is.
Unbelief is also a sign of unrest in our hearts. At Meribah and Massah, people didn’t trust God and did not enter God’s rest. When you rest in Christ and what He has done for you on the cross, He leads you to true rest and true worship.
from Psalms: Dealing with Difficult Emotions