"WORSHIP WITH YOUR WHOLE BEING"

Good Evening to All!

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Mark 12:30

I have been reading a Bible Study book called Loving god with all five senses. She brings up the fact about touching. I can't help but feel that this word and this sense has a special meaning to God. A common phrase is we want to "get a touch from God. God touched me, and so forth.

She said it well, a touch has to happen before a feeling comes. The sense of touch affects the whole body.

Worship comes from deep within us. It's not just a shallow surface action. Worship is more than a 20 or 30 minute song service on Sunday morning and Wednesday night. It is more than spending 15 or 20 minutes in prayer. Worship is a lifestyle. It is how we show God our love with our whole being, body, mind and spirit. The best kind of worship is when we don't really "feel" like worshiping, but we put our "feelings" aside and do it for God anyway. Just like getting up and going to work even though we would rather sleep in because we need the job to pay our bills.

Our worship definitely should not depend on how WE feel, because it's not about us, it's ALL about HIM. He deserves our worship and praise no matter what, just because of who He is.

Personally, I love to worship. No matter how bad I'm feeling when I get up in the morning, if I will push my self to start praising God and worshiping I soon feel much better. There have been many times when I really didn't "feel like going to church because I didn't sleep well the night before, or maybe I was even sick, but I would go anyway. Shortly after the service started I would notice how much better I was feeling. I totally believe it was because I got my mind off myself and was concentrating on worshiping God. It's like I'm in my own little vacuum with God when I worship. I don't pay any attention to anything else going on around me. It is an amazing feeling.

I do disagree with her on one point though. She says that we must be cautious that we not try to "work up" those feelings of worship. She's talking about getting in tune with the music and stirred up emotionally, but never reach the heart of God. in true worship. First of all if I'm just keeping beat with the music, and not concentrating on God, that isn't worship at all, that's just plain enjoying the music. I will say however, that a lot of times when I walk in the church doors I may not be in the frame of mind yet to worship, but when the music starts, and I start listening and singing the words to the songs, my focus hones in on God and I truly begin to worship Him and praise Him.

I've heard it said "don't let your feelings or emotions rule your worship. Well, the only thing I can say about that is , love is an emotion, and worship comes from love, so wouldn't that be letting love rule my worship? Besides that, according to the above verse, my love or worship is to consist of my whole being, heart, soul, mind and strength, so to me that would include emotions, as well as movement, and praising with my mouth. That's all part of worship. I saw this and wanted to call your attention to the word spirit. I looked up the verse in the Bible, and in this picture, they mistyped it. Where it says God is a spirit, the word Spirit is capitalized in the Bible, yet the last spirit is not capitalized in the Bible, because it is talking about OUR spirits. In other words we are to worship Him with our whole heart, our spirit, as well as our mind and our strength.

I know this is a bit different than the way I usually post, but it was just what I had on my heart.

Good night to All and May God bless,