Before and After Spiritual Worship

Spiritual worship isn’t a one-and-done event. This devotional reading looks at how we must prepare for spiritual worship and how we must respond to spiritual worship.

Nuggets

  • We prepare our hearts for worship by seeking Him.
  • Spiritual worship shows us where our hearts and thoughts fail God.
  • Spiritual worship starts with our purity.

We have finally reached the end of our discussion on spiritual worship. We’ve taken our time stepping through Charlock’s sermon entitle Spiritual Worship.

In his conclusion, Charnock told us that we should examine our hearts before and after worship.

Let's Put It into Context

To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.

Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.

Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study

Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.

The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.

Resource

The blue headings are Charnock’s words.

Before Worship

“My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘LORD, I am coming’” (Ps. 27: 8 NLT)

How are our hearts prepared to worship? Do we quicken our spirits? (Psalm 27:8.) Are our hearts fixed?

We prepare our hearts for worship by seeking Him.

I don’t know how many times in my life that I showed up to worship unprepared. I know I am not the only one.

But what does it mean to be prepared?

We have to seek God before we can worship Him.

I love how the English Standard Version translates the verse. “You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

We know all about seeking God. We’ve used this so many times, we have a graphic for it.

Searching for and Seeking God

Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17)
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3)
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16)
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11)
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2)
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11)

Brown pointed out the echo. God says, “Seek;” we say, “Seek.”

Resource

God mercifully calls us to salvation. Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.

  • Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
    ◦ Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
    • Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
      • Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
      • Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
      • Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
    • Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin. 
    • Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
  • Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
    • Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
  • Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
    • The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.

The ABCDs of Salvation

If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.

A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord

D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us

The Disciple’s Job Description

Glossary

God calls us because salvation only comes from Him through Jesus, but we have to search for Him. In this search, He provides us the answers. We search for God the same way that we seek Him.

We don’t know how God will call us. It could be through God’s Word, His Church, or His Spirit. However He chooses, He speaks to our souls.

When God calls, we need to promptly answer. We need to do as He asks.

That is the obedience for which God is looking. We don’t ask questions. We don’t doubt.

We make a conscious decision to do what God says.

We were created to worship God. So, it is our duty to believe in Him.

But again, God allows us to choose. He gave us free will to do so. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.

Our focus must be on God so that we can hear this echo. Notice how short God’s part is. “Seek my face” (Ps. 27: 8 KJV) and “Come and talk with me.” (Ps. 27: 8 NLT).

We get that focus by reading God’s Word, praying to Him – seeking Him.

When we do all that, God through His grace will meet us as we worship Him.

The echo must come from our hearts. Genuine spiritual worship comes from the heart.

Thomson discussed length, also. He wrote, “Plainly faith does not require the complete revelation of the Bible to warrant and sustain its exercise. In general, it is not a long passage, but a short) sentence, like the point of an arrow striking the mark, or the edge of a sword cutting through and through by a single blow, that does it.”

Resource

How many times do we think we can’t witness because we don’t know God’s Word from cover to cover? We think our faith is too small. 

 

 

hhis a gift from God and a work of the Spirit that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.

Glossary

God is looking for a simple response. It is a practical and personal response.

After Worship

“As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, ‘God is truly here among you’” (I Cor. 14: 25 NLT)

How do we find our hearts after worship? How as to inward strength, humility, delight?

Spiritual worship shows us where our hearts and thoughts fail God.

We know that our hearts are wicked. “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jer. 17: 9 NLT).

Worship is part of our sanctification process.

How can we say that? Bull told us.

  • “He has no true knowledge of himself as a sinner.”
  • “Sin unknowingly committed as well as those willingly forgotten lie buried deep in the memory till the hour of revival.”
  • “Ignorant as we are of the depths of our own nature there is a limited but sufficient knowledge that we may obtain of ourselves.”

Resource

We don’t have a correct handle on sin. We aren’t going to understand and correct the things we need to until we worship God.

I know. Some of us would rather our weaknesses and lack of knowledge and understanding not be the topic of discussion.

That doesn’t help us. Only God cutting out any sin in our hearts and thoughts can bring us rest.

So, worship is where we interact with God so that He can correct us. After worship, it is our duty to determine how God wants us to change.

What? Are we saying worship isn’t so we are comforted? Isn’t it where we get the warm fuzzies?

Comfort, yes. Warm fuzzies, no.

God doesn’t validate us as who we are. He corrects us so that we can become like Him.

As He shows us how to grow, God comforts us. He is with us and love us through our sanctification process.

Who Can Worship?

“Who may climb the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies” (Ps. 24: 3-4 NLT)

For comfort. For exhortation.

Spiritual worship starts with our purity.

We question who can come to God. God wants all to be saved.

  • “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (II Pet. 3: 9 ESV).
  • “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live” (Ezek. 18: 32 ESV).
  • “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV).

But when we see the answer — “Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies” (Ps. 24: 4 NLT) — we wonder if anyone could ever fulfill that requirement. We may feel hopeless.

Stuart explains the purity part. He said it means “Not only outward morality, but inward purity. His walk, his work, and his conversation must all be absolutely pure; he must be able to bridle his tongue, as well as keep his heart pure.”

Resource

Purity — being sinless — has to be complete. Our inward transformation must be seen in our outward walk. Our outward transformation must be because of an inward transformation.

Every aspect of our lives must be pure. Our walk is how we live our lives, specifically our habitual state of mind, behavior, and manners. Works is generally considered as being the good things we do for others. When our lives and our actions are pure, so is what we talk about.

Likewise, our worship must be pure. We must only worship God.

It is only through our fellowship with God that we can attempt to be pure. Our attempts on our own will fail.

The requirement of purity may seem to be an impossible one to attain. It is true we won’t obtain it in this life.

We will become pure — perfect — when God calls His children home. This is the gift God will give us for submitting to Him.

We will become pure — perfect — when God calls His children home.

We can take comfort in the fact that God knows we will not be able to be totally pure in this lifetime. We must want to be pure and must be navigating the Sanctification Road so that we are getting closer to being pure.

That should be a big motivator to worship God.

before-and-after-spiritual-worshipFB

Making the Connections #1

Too many times, mankind fights God when He calls us to salvation.

This resistance can run the gamut. It can go from flat out refusal on one end to lip service on the other end.

God doesn’t want either of those responses. God wants our salvation to be genuine. He wants us to accept His gift.

Making the Connections #2

This series hasn’t been only about what spiritual worship is. It has also been about finding Jesus in our worship.

But what does that mean?

In the feeding the 5,000 episode of The Chosen, Jonathan Roumie as Jesus said that they were missing the need of repentance and righteousness. I think that is still true today.

Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.

  • Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.

Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.

Glossary

Worship means nothing if we haven’t genuinely ask Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer and submit our will to God’s.

How Do We Apply This?

  • Answer God promptly and genuinely.
  • Search for God to believe in Him and seek Him to grow closer to Him.
  • Acknowledge God’s sovereignty.
    Obey God.

Resource

Father God. Thank You for allowing us to worship You. Lord, we want to worship You in spirit and in truth. Grow us to worship You in purity, Amen.

What do you think?

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