We worship God by using the gifts He gave us to glorify Him. This devotional reading looks at when we refuse to use our gifts to serve God and give Him, instead, lip service.
Nuggets
- If we don’t use the talents and gifts God has given us, we sin and do not worship Him.
- True spiritual worship means we are not formalists or nominalists.
It is our duty to worship God. There are times, though, when we slip up.
We withhold using our spiritual gifts. We give lip service instead.
Not good.
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.
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Charnock’s words are in blue.
Our Purpose
“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another” (I Pet. 4: 10 NLT)
To withhold our spiritual faculties is to deny them the end and use for which they were given.
If we don’t use the talents and gifts God has given us, we sin and do not worship Him.
God has given each of us talents and abilities through His grace. He doesn’t give us these just so we have them.
We are to use these gifts to worship Him. If we don’t use them to His glory, we sin.
God does not give each of us every gift. Also, while God can give several disciples the same gift, He gives them to us at differing levels.
- “The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” (Mt. 13: 23 NLT).
- “He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last — dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip” (Mt. 25: 15 NLT).
Why is it so important for disciples to use their gifts? A sermon in the Homiletic Quarterly gave the following explanation: “A ministry without ministerial gifts is a machine incapable of moving, even if the power were there.”
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The focus is wrong, rendering the gifts ineffective. We have a responsibility to use our God-given gifts correctly.
The Bishop of Lichfield talked about this. He said mankind are moral beings, which enlightens, instructs, counsels, and exhorts. He wrote, “I have dwelt upon these points because it seems to me that in these days there is a tendency to lay the foundations of moral conduct and of the religious life rather in the emotions and affections than in the demands of conscience and the obedience of the will. By such methods the sense of responsibility is inevitably weakened, and our duties, both mortal and religious, become only a higher kind of self-gratification.”
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It isn’t about being a moral person and self-gratification. It is about submitting our Will to God, obeying Him, and serving one another. It is about doing God’s good rather than the world’s evil.
Good, in the biblical sense, is the workings of God within His people through His holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- 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.
- 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.
Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes.
- 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.
Glossary
In other words, we worship God by using our gifts to serve other disciples. Remember, James was talking to the church who — along with the Jews —had been dispersed across several nations. He isn’t talking about serving non-believers.
That being said, we do use our gifts to serve non-believers. We use them God’s way, not the world’s way, to witness to them.
We are stewards of the gifts God gives us, not owners. A steward is a person in a subordinate position to God who has been given the responsibility to manage a skill or possession for the purpose of expanding His kingdom.
We must use all our gifts to their full potential for God.
We have a tendency to downplay these gifts — if not deny them altogether. God doesn’t want that. That doesn’t grow His kingdom.
Luckily with practice, we get better using these gifts. We need to use these gifts within the church to serve other disciples.
We can’t lose sight of the true purpose of the gifts. Yes, they are to be used to serve others. But their true purpose is to help sanctify us.
Our purpose is to worship God.
Our Engagement
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mt. 15: 8 NLT)
Without the engagement of our spirits, no act is an act of worship. The posture of the body is best to testify to the affection of the mind.
True spiritual worship means we are not formalists or nominalists.
Our worship of God must be true worship. It can’t be lip service.
We’ve talked before about how God does not accept lip service. In other words, we can’t be formalists or nominal disciples.
- A formalist is a person who gives the appearance of being a disciple but, in reality, isn’t.
- Nominal disciples are those boasting they love God without even trying to imitate Him — those who dig on religion and its rituals without having a change in heart.
I can see a lot of overlap in these. To me, the term formalist is the overarching title. The term nominal disciple is the description of who formalists are.
Another term to describe them is they are self-righteous. They feel like they are morally superior.
This kind of goes along with the last section. Spiritual worship is more than just doing the actions of being a good person.
We have to be fully engaged to be a disciple of Christ.
It is believing that we are in need of a Savior because we have sinned, that we can’t save ourselves, Jesus is the only one Who can save us, and we have to acknowledge God as Sovereign Lord.
I like how Zollikofer put it. We have to have “… confession of the mouth and confession of the life …”
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That reinforces that we can’t just have head knowledge. We have to have heart-knowledge.
Charnock put it this way. He wrote, “God asks for the heart in worship, and commands outward ceremonies, as subservient to inward worship, and goads and spears unto it.”
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Our belief in God has to make a difference in our lives. It has to change who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
In another sermon, Zollikofer gave a list of what worship doesn’t mean.
- It doesn’t mean a strong devotion induced by knowledge.
- It doesn’t mean a checklist of religious ceremonies.
- It doesn’t mean abstinence of the don’ts.
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Sanctity is all about the change to become like God because we have submitted our lives to Him.
Spiritual worship is about getting the focus right and getting the outcome right. The focus has to be about God. The outcome is about the inward transformation that manifests itself in the outward walk.
It has to have a substance to it.
Making the Connections #1
These two points were hooked together with the two points in the last devotion, entitled God’s Nature and Our Nature. We have already mentioned it, but we have to make the connection.
We are given gifts to be used to navigate the Sanctification Road. Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the 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.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
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
The gifts are worthless is we do not use them to imitate God. We must become as He is.
Making the Connections #2
We need to look at the context of the Matthew 15: 8 verse. Jesus was talking to Pharisees here. They had made up all these different commandments and were trying to pass them off as God’s commandments.
We can apply this two ways in today’s world.
The first was is today’s Pharisees can be disciples. When God is indifferent about something, but we believe it, we can add commandments of our own. We are trying to get others to believe as we do.
That is wrong. “Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong” (Rom. 14: 1 NLT).
Yes, they may be wrong — but we may be wrong. Either way, it is wrong to rewrite God’s Word to our way of thinking.
The second way to look at this is today’s Pharisees can be non-believers. Let me explain that.
No, worldview people haven’t made a profession of faith. But they can be as exacting as the Pharisee’s as to how disciples should believe and act.
And that is based on their beliefs, not God’s.
Rogers talked about three commandments of men.
- The same as God’s.
- The opposite of God’s or impede His laws and commandments.
- Indifferent of what God has or hasn’t commanded.
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We have to be careful that we worship God’s way.
How Do We Apply This?
- Be sincere and honest.
- Seek God.
- Have the right motivations.
- Repent.
- Don’t get caught up in the ritual and miss the meaning.
- Rely on God’s power.
- Meditate in Him.
- Avoid temptations that will take our focus off God.
- Prepare before we act.
- Be dedicated to our service for God.
- Remember the consequences of being formalists and nominal disciples.
- Make God the true object of our worship.
- Worship God His way.
- Worship Him completely.
- Utilize all the spiritual graces in our worship.
- Worship God in Jesus’ name.
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)
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Father God. We want our worship of You to be genuine and sincere. We don’t want to give You lip service. We want to use the gifts You have given us to expand Your kingdom. Amen.
What do you think?
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