How sincere and honest is our worship? Are we sincere enough to spend a sacrificial amount of time, whatever that is for each of us, to pray and praise, worshipping God in our private worship? If we were it would revolutionize the worship of the body as we gathered each time and worshipped out of our own personal worship lives. The beginning of our worship is described in Psalm 51:17: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart." Are we broken before God about our own personal worship and the lack of sincerity and honesty about our worship as the church?
Sincere worship involves an honest evaluation of our love for God. When we sing, "My Jesus, I love Thee" is it sincere and from our hearts to Him, or are we just singing words? The English word for worship is derived from the word, "worthship". What is His true worth in our lives? Is our worship sincere?
Sincere worship also will lead to a sincere expressing of our love to Him. As the body of Christ we should not try to put worship in a neat box of our own making. We should never gather just to say we gathered. We each must be broken of pride, arrogance and even the selfishness that drives us to "serve" and think too highly of ourselves for doing it. As we said above, it begins with a brokenness.
Sincere worship calls for us to practice praise all the time. Psalm 34:1 says, "I will extol the Lord at all times." Hebrews 13:15 states, "Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. . ." When the body gathers to worship it should be an extension and enlargement of our continual praise as individuals, becoming a corporate expression of glory to God!
Sincere worship also says, "My truly knowing God is more important than a form, tradition, a certain style of worship music, or norms we have created on our own that we 'think' is worship." " . . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings." (Phil. 3:10.)
Finally, sincere public worship must be an outgrowth of our private time with God. How can we please God with our worship on Sunday without the sincerity of our worship during the week? How can we possibly worship God sincerely in spirit and in truth when the sanctuary of our heart is crowded with busyness, pride, and selfishness? A.W. Tozer stated that if we didn't know the presence of God in our offices, schools, factories or our homes, then God would not be in the church we attend. mjm
