Heart of Worship

Romans 15:5-6 - Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

I love my little church in Arizona. It has a new pastor. Pastor Nathan is a big man with a booming voice...and messages that are pointed...right to Jesus, right to our hearts and right to our spirits, the way messages should be. Oh, I love my church in Wisconsin too. I get the best of both states.

A couple Sundays ago Pastor Nathan spoke on Acceptable Worship. Seems I’ve heard something like this before from my Wisconsin pastor! God loves a joyful noise. And He loves and knows a heart of worship that comes out of spirit and truth.

What Pastor Nathan was telling us, however, was we should get into the habit of worship NOW. Pastor Rory said something similar. Some day in heaven it’s what we will do. We should get used to doing it today. We don’t need to know the words to the song nor do we need to like the sound of the music, Pastor Nathan suggested. We come to worship God with a heart of humility and out of an attitude that it’s between He and me! We come out of an act of obedience; it is what we are called to do.

He used the example of King Saul who had been appointed to be the king of Israel because of his heart for the Lord. When he began his days as king he was humble and he was obedient to God in all he did. As time went on, however, he became proud and thought he knew better than God and acted against God’s command.

He was told to battle against the Amalekites and that God would see to it he would capture them. He was also told that he should not spare the lives of anyone or any beast. Nothing should be spared. Nothing. But Saul spared the king’s life and all the best of the animals and crops and any thing that was good, to become a sacrifice to God. But this was clearly against God’s command. He did not want the sacrifices; He wanted obedience (1Samuel 15:22). Samuel had not even been aware he had gone against God. His pride took over. His thinking that what he did was good. 

This can happen to us when we determine we do not like the music. It’s not about the music; it’s about our hearts and our obedience when we stand to worship before God. As Pastor Nathan said, Any arrogance or pride will destroy our worship. If we determine that this music doesn’t suit us so it must not suit the Lord, we are making our own decision. We don’t know God’s heart, other than He loves a joyful noise! 

There's a song by Michael W. Smith called the Heart of Worship. The lyrics tell us it goes much deeper than the music. The song is not what is required; it is our heart and what comes out of that heart. A heart that knows that it's not about the music but it's all about Him.

Worship should be between God and me. If my heart grouses at the music, I’ve destroyed that time of worship right then and there. I have been disobedient; I’ve not sacrificed my time, my heart to be with the Lord. It is displeasing to Him that I have placed more importance over the sound of the music than my closing in and worshiping Him. There’s no reason why we can’t take in the words and form prayers within our hearts out of them.

No church will ever meet the needs of all people. We would love to have an atmosphere of unity, but is it possible to ever attain this? As far as music goes, which is most important, unity of worship or music that “I” like? Could that be an attitude of pride? Could it be an attitude that says it's all about me and my likes and dislikes? Could it be an attitude of the heart that God finds undesirable?

A humble heart is what is acceptable to the Lord. Humbleness in our attitude even when we don’t always agree with the music...or anything that causes disunity within the body of Christ. There are times when something is not right and something needs to be pointed out as wrong. It’s just not always all about me, or anyone. Music seems to be the typical hot topic of disagreement. And isn’t that just what the enemy wants?

Is my worship between me and God or is it an outward display for others to see? It’s all about Him. If we are doing it for the sake of others seeing us, they are empty actions. God knows our hearts and our thoughts. He can see right through our actions. Sometimes actions can be visibly seen as defiance because we don’t like something. There goes unity. Are we sacrificing our own feelings and thoughts about something in order to worship God? Are we laying those thoughts and feelings at His feet and humbling ourselves or are we being defiant? God delights in obedience.

1Samuel 15:22 - So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."

Man Made Altars

Exodus 20:23-25 - You shall not make anything to be with Me--gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for Me...And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.


Oh, how the ideas are running through my head on this. Most of what I'm writing is a feeling I have that I seem to be having a difficult time tying together in words... There are so many biblical inferences to altars...or idols.


God is telling us, it's all about our heart attitudes toward Him, not the gradiose things we do. It's not the works we do that will gain God's attention--in relation to salvation. It's our humbled heart that comes to Him to first receive Him. We do not need to build a great altar of gold or silver, but an altar of earth is all that is required of Him, nothing that we have set our hands to to create.

If you know the story that comes later in Exodus, Aaron was pressured by the people in Moses' long-delayed absence (while He was in God's presence) to create a golden calf so they would have something to go before them. Aaron gathered all their precious gold and hand carved this calf for them. They were chastised for it when Moses returned. God was angry.


Where am I going with all this? "An altar of earth..." "Not hewn stone..." Simple, plain, humble, nothing we can create, but God... I'm reminded that we can worship the Lord in our own hearts at any time. If we are imperfect people and He's willing to meet us there...what a wonderful thing to realize. It's not the outward appearance He looks at but our hearts. 1Samuel 16:17b - For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. We are called to go to God in an attitude of humility, as James 4:10 tells us "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up."


Go humbly to Him within our hearts. Once salvation is received and we give our hearts to God, our heart can be that altar. It has become a spiritual altar, one that God has changed...actually from a heart of stone to one of flesh. Stone...flesh. A simple heart... good enough.


I had written this blog Sunday morning before going to church in Arizona. And what did Pastor John discuss? How God looks at the heart. He talked about the leper in Mark 1 whom Jesus healed. Jesus went to him...an unclean man...just like we are...unclean...we are pretty much lepers until we receive Jesus. He cleans us up. He always socialized with the unclean. He did just the opposite of what the religious leaders would have done...and was criticized for it. This leper had an awful outward appearance but Jesus knew his heart.


Oswald Chambers tells us in his My Utmost for His Highest devotion for March 6 "it takes Almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectator..." It's in the trivial things that we do that God delights in. "...the steady perseveringly work in the unseen..." Although Chambers is talking about sacrifice and worshiping Him in the dullness of our days and the tedium, I think it adds to the thought of not building this huge altar to get God's attention but in the quiet of our own hearts.

God loves simplicity not grandeur. Jesus came humbly into this world, through humble parents, humble lifestyle, humble means. He did not come to be served but to serve. Prior to His death, He invited His disciples to join Him at the Passover feast. As was customary for one inviting guests, a servant would wash the guests' feet. Jesus again humbled Himself and did this for them even though He was their Savior. So altars...God does not require an altar of magnificence...a humble one will do...heart humbled is the greatest altar He would receive from us.

We are told God resides in a tabernacle not made by man's hand in Hebrews 9:11. It's spiritual in nature. When we receive Christ, we receive the assurance that we have a new spiritual nature and it's through our heart attitude and our coming to Christ through our hearts that is important. No altars made of stone or gold or silver (that was so Old Testament!). Nothing outward, nothing glitzy but humble. Heart and heart attitude. Hebrews 10:19 tells us we have the confidence to enter into the Holy of Holies through the blood of Christ. How do we do that when there is no physical building, no physical sanctuaryand no physical altar is required....it's through our hearts, having received Christ.

No man made altars...coming as we are with all our imperfections...receiving forgiveness of our sins by accepting Christ. In the Old Testament physical altars were used for physical sacrifices. Today we have Jesus. He was our sacrifice. Being in Christ we come as we are sacrificing ourselves, worshiping Him, with the altar of our heart.


Romans 12:1 - I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.