Worship is a Lifestyle!

One of the biggest problems we have with the worship of God is that we relegate it solely to a formal church experience. Once we do that we fall prey to the practice of compartmentalizing our lives, in which we divide our lives up into separate compartments. Thus we have our “God compartment,” our “family compartment,” our “work compartment,” our “leisure compartment,” and so on. Then we allow attitudes, behaviors, and language in one compartment that we would never allow in another. But a compartmentalized life is a compromised life!

The Pharisees were masters at compartmentalizing their lives and Jesus called them on it, identifying it as hypocrisy. The Pharisees were so attentive to their “worship compartment” that they even gave a tenth of the little herbs that they grew. But in the context of the rest of their lives they neglected really important matters like justice, mercy and faithfulness. (Matthew 23:23)

Jesus said to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (Matthew 15:7-9)

In Psalm 24:3-4, David asks the rhetorical question, “Who is fit to worship the Lord?”
To which he responds, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” The point isn’t to disqualify people from worship! The point is that what we do in all of life’s spheres matters to God and must matter to us. I want to please God whether I’m at work, at home, on the internet, at the lake, out driving, or at a party with friends. I want my life to be an expression of worship of him!

©2009 Rob Fischer