Worshipping God is simple. Really, it is.
As humans we tend to have this strong lean towards making everything complicated, but I feel like the Lord is constantly reminding me, and us, that things are so much simpler than they seem. The Gospel itself is so much simpler than it seems. We just make it hard & complex. And, in the same way, we often make worshipping God a lot more complex than it needs to be too, when really, it’s simple.
Worshipping God is Simple
Worshipping God doesn’t have to be perfect; it doesn’t have to be complex, and it certainly doesn’t require the Western necessities of smoke machines & stage lights. Worshipping God is a simple response to His goodness, and a response can be long & wordy, or it can be short & sweet. Sometimes I write my fiancée long texts about how awesome she is and how much I appreciate her, and sometimes I express that with a simple “thank you baby”, of course making sure to include all the fluffy emojis as well.
God knows your heart, and He knows how you communicate. Worshipping God doesn’t have to look the same for you as it does for someone else! It is far simpler than we make it seem.
Worshipping God is simple. It can be done at work, at home, at school, in the car, or anywhere else. It can be done with your work, with your home, with your education, or with your possessions. Any of these things can become a vehicle or an act of worshipping God when we choose to posture ourselves in that way. If we come into any space expecting God to move, and putting our hearts in alignment with His, we can expect to see something happen. In essentially the same way, when we posture our hearts into a position of worship, whatever we do can become a way of us worshipping God. (Obviously, this excludes anti-biblical behavior, but hopefully that goes without saying).
When we do our work in a posture of worship, acknowledging God’s presence with us and doing it to the best of our ability as an offering to Him, we are worshipping God – right there at work! When we are cleaning our home, doing our dishes, or even folding the laundry, we are worshipping God when we acknowledge Him in those areas and do those things well as unto Him (Colossians 3:17, 23-24). When we do well on our schoolwork, use our spiritual giftings, and sacrificially love our neighbor, we are worshipping God! These are all things that can be turned into acts of worship when done from the posture of honoring God & loving our neighbor. Worshipping God is simple! But is it easy?
Worshipping God is(n’t always) Easy
Yes, that is an accurate title, not a typo. Worshipping God is both easy and not always easy. When we are doing things like musical worship, worshipping is easy! It’s literally what we are there to do. But when we are doing things like washing dishes by ourselves for the sixth time this week, worshipping can become a little more difficult. Or, even more so, when we are facing the loss of a family member, being laid off from work, or experiencing a deafening trial in our lives, worshipping God can become quite difficult to even imagine. However, God is always faithful to show up when we begin to praise Him. Some of my most powerful moments in worship have come from seasons of near despair. Something about those darker seasons made God’s presence even more beautiful when He showed up.
Sometimes I think it’s easy to be worshipping God when everything is going well, but I’ve heard people tell me that’s when they’ve had the hardest time doing so. Often, people can forget to bring their worship to God when things are going well, and only come to Him when things are hard. Others may find it easier to praise God when things are going well but struggle to bring themselves before Him when it gets hard. For the former, the LORD warned the people of Israel to remember Him and worship Him alone when they received all the blessings that He had promised (see Deuteronomy 6:10-12); failure to do so would result in a form of curse. For the latter, remember that we can read & meditate on the truths of Psalm 56:8-13, where David cries out to God in his distress, but acknowledges that God still has him close, even counting the tears that fall from his face, and yet David commits to “rendering his thank offerings” to God, for God has still done well to him. This is a powerful reminder to be worshipping God even when life is hard!
Worshipping God can be easy, or it can be difficult, but no matter the circumstances, it can always be simple.
Worshipping God Daily
As Christians today, it is imperative we continue to offer our thanks to God, worshipping Him every day and throughout every aspect of our lives. Today, as New Testament believers, we are continuing the practice of daily worship, prayer, and study that the Apostles & disciples did in the early church (see Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35). Worshipping God was, and is, meant to be a part of our daily & weekly expressions of our faith in Christ. As born-again believers, we have been given the gift of God’s abiding presence – His Holy Spirit within us – and His presence is reason enough to worship Him! He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6), and He chose to dwell within us, only further solidifying that promise. Worshipping God then becomes a natural response to His goodness and His work in our lives.
As the Apostle Paul wrote, we ought to offer our entire lives as a “living sacrifice” to God. This, he says, is our “reasonable service”, and our “true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). The Holy Spirit through Paul urges us to do this “in light of God’s mercy”, meaning that as we recognize He has extended His mercy so deeply toward us, we ought to respond by worshipping Him with all of our lives.
This whole-life worship, a holistic worship of God, brings five things into perspective to lay down before God and honor Him with: our physical bodies (what we eat, if we exercise, and how we steward the body God has given us), our minds (what we think, what we desire, what we consume audibly & visually), material possessions (do we cling to them or idolize them, or do we give freely?), work (does it consume or define us, or is it in its proper place as a vocational call and done in worshipful response to God?), and relationships (do we love sacrificially, do we offer forgiveness, do we represent Jesus well to the world?). In lying these down before God, we are worshipping Him with our whole lives.
Again, worshipping God is simple! And it can be easy, even if the circumstances are hard. May we remember to lay down our whole lives every day as an act of worshipping God holistically.
