Let's Think About How We Worship God

“Do not worship the LORD your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods.  [Deuteronomy 12.4]

Yes, I have written about this verse before. And, rightly so, for it matters that God's people do not look like the world - whether in ancient Israel's time, or in the year 2021.

It would seem prudent that God's people see Deuteronomy 4 as the warning it is that it is very possible to worship God like the world worships its idols unless specific effort is made otherwise.

What do we do today to purposefully NOT look like the world in our worship of Almighty God?

One might argue that we raise holy hands to Him in worship and that sets us apart. However, to argue that point is futile. All one has to do is witness what takes place at a secular music concert to see that more people raise hands in that circumstance than they do in any church worship service. In fact, secular music concerts borrowed that from Christianity, but Christianity in turn, borrowed dim lighting from secular concerts. It is hard to tell who is borrowing from whom. The point is, both a secular music concert and many a modern Christian worship service are essentially doing the same thing. One however supposedly worships God while the other worships a performer. And, while on that subject, in some cases today, unless there is a real effort otherwise, churchgoers may be worshipping the performers onstage instead of God.

Appearances are important. It really doesn't matter who "did it first." What matters is that God's people do not look like the world's people in their worship!

I suppose this topic needs in depth consideration. The reason both secular concerts and Christian worship services have become so similar is because they are both appealing to the same thing these days: emotion. As good as emotion may make either 'concert' venue - for entertainment or feel-good value, it falls short of Biblical fellowship with God. We can know this because people can be highly emotional at a concert and then 'go right back to normal life' un-moved, unchanged, and un-resolved within minutes of walking out the 'concert hall' doors.

So, regardless what got us here, we must be conscious and pursuant of the necessary effort to avoid our worship of God looking even remotely like the world's worship of its idols.

We must remember that our worship of God is not about emotion. It should be purely about the Spirit - God's Kingdom. Anything we do to evoke emotion (instead of the Spirit of God) is, at its basest, self-worship, and, at its worst, all-out idol worship.

Father, help us to re-think our modern worship services - especially those of us who have adopted and incorporated so many  "tools" of the world's music industry into our worship of You.