Worship: All that is to the glory and praise of God.
Worship is what WE think, say and do in response to God - especially His unconditional and universal love, His profound service, His mercy, His forgiveness, His Cross. Worship is an act of faith, an expression of love and service.
We worship God because He is God. Period. In other words, our worship toward the One who is worthy simply because of His identity as the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One, and not just because God is merciful, loving, forgiving, saving, and able to meet our needs and answer our prayers. We must focus our practice of worship on the worthiness of God. On the other hand, it is moved by gratitude... our faith and heart compel us to worship as we reflect on His heart and all He has done for us (indeed, we live and breathe ONLY because God unconditionally loves us, is merciful to us, is giving toward us).
While this can be expressed in words (as perhaps we think of in a public worship service on Sunday morning) but it by no means is limited to such verbal expressions. Indeed, as God's love for us is best expressed by His ACTIONS, by His active/giving love, by His SERVICE, indeed by the bloody Cross - so our love for Him is best expressed by our actions, our active love, our service, our crosses. And often this is directed to PEOPLE..... as Jesus said, "whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Me." Luther's concept of "vocatio" is involved here. Worship is not LIMITED to such a life (that structured, verbal public worship service on Sunday morning is 'worship' too), our life is the fullest expression of such.
WHY worship? It's good for us. It's good for humanity.
Pax Christi
- Josiah
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