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God is not interested in halfhearted commitment, partial obedience, or the leftovers of your time and money. He desires your full devotion, not little bits of your life.

A Samaritan woman once tried to debate Jesus on the best time, place, and style for worship. Jesus replied that these external issues are irrelevant. Where you worship is not as important as why you worship and how much of yourself you offer to God when you worship. 

There is a right and wrong way to worship. The Bible says, "Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him ..." (Hebrews 12:28, TEV). The kind of worship that pleases God has four characteristics:

God is pleased when our worship is accurate
People often say, "I like to think of God as ..." and then they share their idea of the kind of God they'd like to worship. But we cannot just create our own comfortable or politically correct image of God and worship it. That is idolatry.

Worship must not be based on our opinions about God but on the truth of Scripture. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, "True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks" (John 4:23, NIV). To "worship in truth" means to worship God as he is truly revealed in the Bible.

God is pleased when our worship is authentic
When Jesus said you must "worship in spirit" he wasn't referring to the Holy Spirit, but to your spirit! Made in God's image, you are a spirit that resides in a body, and God designed your spirit to communicate with him. Worship is our spirit responding to God's Spirit.

When Jesus said, "Love God with all your heart and soul" he meant that worship must be genuine and heartfelt. It is not just a matter of saying the right words; you must mean what you say. Heartless praise is not praise at all! It is an insult to God.

When we worship, God looks past our words to our hearts. The Bible says, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7b, NIV).

Since worship involves delighting in God, it engages your emotions. God gave you emotions so you could worship him with deep feeling -- but those emotions must be genuine, not faked. God hates hypocrisy. He doesn't want showmanship or pretense or phoniness in worship. He wants your honest, real love. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.

Of course, sincerity alone is not enough; you can be sincerely wrong. That's why both spirit and truth are required. Worship must be both accurate and authentic. God-pleasing worship is deeply emotional and deeply doctrinal. We use both our hearts and our heads.

Today many equate being emotionally moved by music as being moved by the Spirit, but these are not the same. Real worship happens when your spirit responds to God, not to some musical tone. In fact, some sentimental, introspective songs hinder worship because they take the spotlight off God and focus on our feelings. Your biggest distraction in worship is yourself -- your interests and your worries over what others think about you.

Christians often differ on the most appropriate or authentic way to express praise to God but these arguments are usually just personality and background differences. Many forms of praise are mentioned in the Bible, among them confessing, singing, shouting, standing in honor, kneeling, dancing, making a joyful noise, testifying, playing musical instruments, and raising hands.

The best style of worship is the one that most authentically represents your love for God, based on the background and personality God gave you.

God is pleased when our worship is thoughtful
Jesus' command to "love God with all your mind" is repeated four times in the New Testament. God is not pleased with thoughtless singing of hymns, perfunctory praying of cliches, or careless exclamations of "Praise the Lord" uttered because we can't think of anything else to say at that moment. If worship is mindless, is it meaningless. You must engage your mind.

Jesus called thoughtless worship "vain repetitions" (Matthew 6:7, KJV). Even biblical terms can become tired cliches from overuse and we stop thinking about the meaning. It is so much easier to offer platitudes in worship instead of making the effort to honor God with fresh words and ways. This is why I encourage you to read Scripture in different translations and paraphrases. It will expand your expressions of worship.

Try praising God without using the words praise, hallelujah, thanks, or amen. Instead of saying, "We just want to praise you," make a list of synonyms and use fresh words like admire, respect, value, revere, honor, and appreciate.

Also, be specific. If someone approached you and repeated, "I praise you!" ten times, you would probably think, For what? You would rather receive two specific compliments than twenty vague generalities. So would God.

God is pleased when our worship is practical
The Bible says, "... offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1, NIV). 

Why does God want your body? Why doesn't he say "Offer your spirit"?

Because without your body you can't do anything on this planet. In eternity, you're going to get a new, improved, upgraded body but while you're here on earth God says, "Give me what you've got!"  He's just being practical about worship.

You've heard people say, "I can't make it to the meeting tonight but I'll be with you in spirit." Do you know what that means? Nothing. It's worthless! As long as you're on earth your spirit can only be where your body is! If your body isn't there, neither are you! 

In worship we are to "Offer our bodies as living sacrifices." Now, we usually associate the concept of "sacrifice" with something dead, but God wants you to be a living sacrifice. He wants you to live for him!  However, the problem with a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar, and we often do that. We sing "Onward Christian soldiers on Sunday then go AWOL on Monday."

In the Old Testament, God took pleasure in the many sacrifices of worship because they foretold of Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross. Now God is pleased with different sacrifices of worship: thanksgiving, praise, humility, repentance, offerings of money, prayer, serving others and sharing with those in need.

Real worship costs. David knew this and said, "I will not offer to the Lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:24, TEV). One thing worship costs us is our self-centeredness. You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time. You don't worship to be seen by others. You deliberately shift the focus off yourself.

When Jesus said, "Love God with all your strength," he was pointing out that worship takes effort and energy. It is not always convenient or comfortable, and sometimes worship is a sheer act of the will -- a willing sacrifice.

Until next week,

	Purpose Driven Worship Conference + Festival  Living Life's Greatest Priorities - Bible study series taught by Tom Holladay