MK 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
We are worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven only when we allow Jesus to sit on the throne of our heart. All other affections must be subservient to have a relationship with Jesus.
Worship demands a sacrifice of our thought diversity. Notice that after Gad had told David, to go build an altar at Araunah's threshing floor, that this purpose became David's single focus. Think of all the people that surround the President when he is in public. All those people have certain agendas and they hope they can get the President's ear long enough to persuade him to support their cause. While judgment was breaking out in Israel because of David's sin and the Assyrian army was mounting, not to mention other concerns, David might have been distracted from all sides. Yet he remained solely focused on restoring his relationship with God through this worship.
I enjoy mountain biking. My favorite trails to ride are called "single tracks." They are usually less than 18 inches wide. We have some local trails that are considered expert trails which are rough, usually steep, and have an embankment of rocks on one side and a drop-off on the other side. Any mistake will cause you to crash into the embankment or cause you to fall 5 to 10 feet off the edge of the trail. There is a mountain bike motto for such situations. It is: "you go where you look." My friends kid me because as I descend these trails, I constantly recite out loud "you go where you look... you go where you look." Isn't the that the principle the author of Hebrews point at in Heb 12; that "you go where you look?"
HEB 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...
Worship demands a sacrifice of our comfort. This is where I struggle most. I like being comfortable and there seems to be something contradictory about being uncomfortable yet thriving in worship. But this is what happened with David. It is important to see that Gad instructs David to worship where the Jebusites lived which would be at Mount Moriah (just north of Jerusalem) rather than that at His royal house (in the southern end of Jerusalem). These were a little less than a mile apart. Additionally, David built the alter and made the sacrifice himself although he, as king, could have had someone else do it while he rested. I think that when we are comfortable, we tend to become spiritually dull.
Let me explain that. When we are willing sacrifice our spiritual comfort, we become Job like who was committed to praising God no matter what physical affliction he suffered "Though he slay me, yet will I praise him" (Job 2:9). When we make the commitment to magnifying God in our lives like John the Baptist when he said, "He must become greater; I must become less" (Jn 3:30) we sacrifice our spirit's desire for self-identificaiton. We sacrifice our spiritual comfort. Lastly we might be called to sacrifice an biblical or theoligical intellectualism in which we pride ourselves. When things don't go the way you expect, do you still worship God? Solomon says that everything is vanity and admonishes us to "fear God and keep His commands" (Ecc 12:8 & 13). Aren't these the works of worship?
There are many costs of worship, we've touched on only four. Anything that keeps us from expressing our affections and reverence to God are likely to become the cost of our worship. We are to cast down vein imaginations that exalt themselves up against the knowledge of God. When such things are internal, they usually represent a personal investments we have already made to uphold it that value in our heart and minds. Sometimes it is a rationalization that we cannot conform to God's high standards. Sometimes it is a pride in who we are, what we've accomplished, what we know or what we own. Sometimes we are just lazy and ignore the prod of discomfort. Whatever the case, God deserves better than our best. Let's continue to learn how to pay the cost or praising and worshipping God. He deserves all praise, all glory, all honor and all power! Praise the Lord
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Experiencing Worship, The Study