Do you feel close to God?

Do you know God’s plan for your life?

Are you being transformed into the image of God?

If you answered, no, or I don’t know to any of those questions, there’s a chance you are not making Worship a priority. You may be having regular ‘devotions’. You may be reading the Bible every day. Yet you still struggle to know and feel God’s presence.

How do you worship daily? Perhaps you don’t know how to worship? Maybe you think worship is just singing songs to God. What if you can’t sing?

Worship requires a commitment, and like many other things in this life, grows with practice.

Worship is part head knowledge. You have to know God.

Worship is heart – felt. You have to love God.

Worship is soul – full. You have to believe God.

Worship is strength of discipline. You have to choose God.

Jesus told us how to worship God:

Worship* God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

*We have changed the word Love to the word Worship because we feel it conveys an even deeper sense of God’s plan for our lives. It is pretty simple really, what you really love you worship. Spend a moment and think about what you really love. Is it God, or his Presence, or just spending time with Him. Chances are we all need to make Worship a priority!

These days we find it easy to love God with our mind. We can know all the information possible about God, but we don’t know God. On it’s own, knowledge is not power, knowledge is danger. We run the risk of over thinking what following God looks like and ending up following our idea of God and not really in a relationship with Him. I believe that is why Jesus asks us to come to him as a child. A child does not over think. A child loves without question. That is the heart.

Worship is heart felt. We must give our emotions to God and allow him to shape our heart. For some of us it is easy to get lost in the emotion of following God. This is why it is not the only requirement. We need to balance our emotion with our knowledge. Worship is not only head and not only heart, it must be both.

Then there are times when our faith is tested and we are brought to the brink of a decision. Not just the initial decision to follow Jesus, but if you have been a believer for a while, you know there are moments where you must continue on the path. This is the renewing of our soul. We must believe God sent his Son for us.

As humans we will also encounter those times where we don’t want to follow any more. It is easier not to follow God. Every day we are faced with the decision to continue on the path of God or change direction and follow our own desires. This is the strength required of following God. We must continue to make the choice to follow Jesus even when we do not feel like it.