My Gift of Worship

In the last post, the question was posed, "What can I give to God?" Indeed, the only thing we can give to God which is truly ours is our worship to Him.

Many thanks to Donovan Palmer for sharing the following ideas – What kind of "gift-giver" will we be in giving God our worship?

Giver #1 – Giving Gifts Pleasing To Ourselves:

Sometimes people give gifts that they find pleasing. It's as if they say, "I like it, so maybe they will like it too!" Have you seen the recent Mastercard commercials? One of them has famed quarterback Peyton Manning (who would have thought he'd be funny?) giving gifts. Obviously, though, Peyton is giving gifts that he likes – gifts that he can identify with. He gives one man a package that is obviously shaped like a football. To a woman, he gives a gift bag that contains a "mouth-guard" – he then tells her to "try it out and see how it fits." In both cases the receiver of the gift obviously does not particularly like what they receive.

We become this kind of gift giver, the one who gives gifts that they like, when we substitute things into worship that God has not instructed us to add. This worship is vain (Matthew 15:7-9). God has no problem telling us what he wants! We need to listen.

A very sad example is found in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 7:30-31. There the Lord says about Judah:

For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight," says the LORD. "They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it.(31) And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart.

 

Notice what they were doing – things which God had not even commanded! These were terrible things, things which God didn't even think about them doing! Oh, how important it is for us to look to God to see how he wants us to worship Him.

Check back tomorrow for the next kind of gift giver.

This is part of a month long series of lessons here at Sweetwater (borrowing the idea from Donovan Palmer) that examine the "Heart of Worship".

Visit "What Can I Give To God?"