The Root of Worship
As God's tender mercies are new everyday, so should our worship be. We should never offer God some recycled prayer and think that we are actually entering into worship. It would also be foolish to think that we could offer worship once a week and be fully pleasing to God. Worship is meant to be an ongoing continual activity. It should never be scheduled, but it should be a part of our daily lives and lifestyle.
The next point that we see from Romans 12:1 is the first activity of worship—offering. Worship is a continual act of giving. Look at this passage from 1 Chronicles 16.
28 Give to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
Give to the LORD glory and strength.
29 Give to the LORD the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come before Him.
Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
1 Chr. 16:28-29 (NKJV)
This passage is repeated almost word for word in Psalm 29 and Psalm 96. The interesting thing about this passage is that we are instructed to give or to bring an offering to the Lord four times before we are ever given a reason. When we finally are given a reason for giving the answer is astonishing. We are not told to give because of God's love or His deliverance or His healing or anything else that He has done. We are simply instructed to give to the Lord because He is holy. God is worthy of our offering and worship simply because He is God, and there is no one like Him.
How many times have you tried to justify and rationalize what you were giving to God. We say things like "Well, God didn't really do anything amazing for me this week, so I'm going to hold back on my giving." Maybe we think we can stick it to God because He didn't come through for us the way that we thought He should. Whatever the reason, there is no legitimate justification and reasoning for not giving to God. He is holy and full of majesty, and that is all the reason that we need to worship.
The final thing that we see from Romans 12:1 is a description of what we should be offering to God. We are to daily offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. The Greek word for "body" is soma (so' mah) which is an all-encompassing word. The Amplified Bible describes it best by breaking the body down into two parts: members and faculties. The members of our body are everything that we can willfully control—our hands, feet, eyes, nose, head, etc., but it also includes our organs: lungs, heart, liver, etc. This tells me that it takes a conscious effort to offer my daily sacrifice to God. It tells me that I have to continually take control of my body and place it under the submission of the Holy Spirit.
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This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.