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Saturday, September 29, 2012

A few examples...


In addition to the New Testament command that believers must worship in Spirit and Truth, worship involves obedience, humility and fear and there are examples of each of these in the Old Testament.  In Genesis chapter 22, God commands Abraham to offer his only son Isaac as a burnt offering unto the Lord.  Every father has a love for their child that is beyond compare and it is unimaginable the feeling of emotional torment Abraham felt after hearing this command.  True worship is far from the mere feelings of our flesh, but this is a trend going on in today’s worship scene and right away can be classified as unbiblical. In this passage in Genesis, we can see that true worship is absolutely void of Abraham feeling like he is worshipping.  Many Christians may associate worship with whether or not they feel like they are worshipping the Lord, but verse 5 in this chapter tells us that Abraham associated obedience with worship.  Abraham was like any other human being and I’m sure that he had all types of things going through his mind on the way to Moriah and ever since the Lord's command.  Abraham yielded everything he had, including his feelings, to worship and submitted his only son to his God.  Worship is far from feeling like it is worship.  Complete obedience to the Lord is worship.  Also in the book of Genesis is the account of the great flood that destroyed all the earth and everything in it, except for Noah and his family.  All the friends Noah had, the industries he was involved in and the different cities of the world, were gone.  All Noah had when he finally came out of the ark was his family.  In chapter 8 verse 20, it says “And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD;…” There was nothing left on this earth to help restart life and economy and such and instead of finding shelter or food or ways to restart life on earth, Noah chose to worship God.  Noah saw that God destroyed everything upon the earth and therefore was in awe and fear of the power of the Lord.  Noah had never ever seen rain before the flood and just by using water, he saw that the almighty and powerful God could destroy everything.  Noah was fearful of God and worshipped God with fear.  There is another account of worship in the Old Testament.  The Lord gives permission to Satan to take away all of Job’s possessions, his sons and daughters, servants and cattle.  Later on, Job’s wife also turns against him and tells him to curse God and die.  Job 1:20-21 is probably one of the greatest record of the right attitude and expression of reverent humility to the Lord.  All of Job’s belongings and all of his life’s work had been taken away and yet Job “…fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,…  Job completely humbled himself and his life to the will of the Lord.  Complete humility to the Lord is worship. 

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