With all of this talk about worship on the web, some of which has been productive, some has not, I’ve been really thinking hard about it. Yesterday, I was doing my devotions, reading My Utmost For My Highest. It was an incredible devotion that day, striking at the heart of why so many people’s worship is empty.
“Have you made the following decision about sin,” ask Oswald Chambers, “that it must be completely killed in you?”
Ouch. I really look at myself, and see that I have crucified many sins, but some still remain, waiting until I make the decision. And that morning I decided. I also realized that crucifying our sin is the first step in worship. We cannot go defiled into the presence of our King, yet we do on so many occasions. We haven’t “radically dealt with the issues of [our] will before God.” When we read Galatians, we need to understand that we must be “crucified with Christ” because we have completely surrendered to Christ. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”
I always keep a copy of a Darlene Zschech quote hanging somewhere in my room to remind me of what worship truly is:
Worship is an act of obedience of the heart. It is a response that requires the very core of who you are, to love the Lord for who He is, not just for what He does. Worship is more than singing beautiful songs in church on a Sunday. It is more than instruments and music. As a true worshiper, your heart will long to worship him at all times, in all ways, and with all your life.
If the “core of who we are” is required, I want that core to be pure in the sight of God. Removing the uncleanness from our back is the very first step towards true worship.







April 12th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Tim, thanks so much for that post. It was just the encouragement and conviction I needed. That Chambers question is so simple, yet so powerful.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
amen. He just showed me how my life’s goal and joy is to be the pursuit of holiness in His power, and it’s been both so very convicting and yet uplifitng. My heart is what matters, and when it’s in the right place, the rest will follow.
April 15th, 2006 at 8:06 am
A note on Darlene Zschech’s quote:
First of all I think it is wrong to assume that loving the Lord for what he does is somehow not linked to loving him for who he is. The Psalms are absolutely brim full of expressions of lvoe and devotion to God for everything he has done. DZ is at the forefront of a movement within Christianity to “dumb down” congregational music into inane “Jesus is my boyfriend” lyrics.
Secondly, Darlene is a central figure in Hillsong church in Sydney, Australia. I am Australian and I have visited that church. Brian Houston, the pastor, preaches “Word of Faith” – prosperity. I don’t think Darlene should be listened to, either in book form or song form.