Liturgy for Life : WK 1 - MON
Worship
Romans 12:1-2
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Worship plays a big role in any liturgy. One thing that frustrates me about the church sometimes is how divided we can be about worship. We can often get distracted from our actual worship of God with our debates, differences, and preferences about worship and what is “wrong and right.” If we aren’t careful, we can end up worshipping various styles of worship instead of God. The act of worship can become an idol.
The passage we are looking at today helps us get a clearer understanding of what true worship is. While there are many aspects to worship, such as when Jesus said in John 4, “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Or how the worship of God’s people in the Old Testament is described with singing, dancing, and shouting. Romans tells us how to “truly worship Him.” The author says to give our bodies to God because of all He has done for us and to let our bodies be a living and holy sacrifice to God.
So what does all of this mean? The word holy means to be set apart for a special purpose. When someone gets married, they enter into holy matrimony. It means they are setting themselves apart for the person they marry to love, honor, and cherish them. When we choose to set ourselves apart to God, we are choosing to live our lives as a holy sacrifice. A laying down of our lives, or as Jesus said, picking up our cross to follow Him. We do this as a whole person with our whole selves, our physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, and social selves. This liturgy of worship doesn’t allow us to live dualistically, trying to separate the sacred and secular experiences of life. When we grow authentically in our worship with God, we do so with our entire life. Everything becomes sacred because we live with a vision of our life being a life of worship in response to all He has and continues to do in us and for us.
Romans 12:1-2
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Worship plays a big role in any liturgy. One thing that frustrates me about the church sometimes is how divided we can be about worship. We can often get distracted from our actual worship of God with our debates, differences, and preferences about worship and what is “wrong and right.” If we aren’t careful, we can end up worshipping various styles of worship instead of God. The act of worship can become an idol.
The passage we are looking at today helps us get a clearer understanding of what true worship is. While there are many aspects to worship, such as when Jesus said in John 4, “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Or how the worship of God’s people in the Old Testament is described with singing, dancing, and shouting. Romans tells us how to “truly worship Him.” The author says to give our bodies to God because of all He has done for us and to let our bodies be a living and holy sacrifice to God.
So what does all of this mean? The word holy means to be set apart for a special purpose. When someone gets married, they enter into holy matrimony. It means they are setting themselves apart for the person they marry to love, honor, and cherish them. When we choose to set ourselves apart to God, we are choosing to live our lives as a holy sacrifice. A laying down of our lives, or as Jesus said, picking up our cross to follow Him. We do this as a whole person with our whole selves, our physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, and social selves. This liturgy of worship doesn’t allow us to live dualistically, trying to separate the sacred and secular experiences of life. When we grow authentically in our worship with God, we do so with our entire life. Everything becomes sacred because we live with a vision of our life being a life of worship in response to all He has and continues to do in us and for us.
- What are some things God has done for you that you want to worship Him for?
- How might you sense God inviting you to set yourself apart to Him?
- How might you live less dualistically between the sacred and the secular?
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