The living church, described as the body of Christ, by its very nature MUST worship God. It is impossible in our relationship with God, because of who He is and who we are, to call ourselves the church and not worship.
So, what is worship? Is it simply singing songs and putting money in the offering plate on Sunday? Or is there more to it than that?
Worship is to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.’ Â Webster’s Dictionary, 1828)
 “Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, the nourishment of the mind with His truth, the purifying of the imagination of His beauty, the opening of the heart to His love, the surrender of the will to His purpose.” William Temple
True worship values and treasures God above all things. In John 4:20-24 Jesus, as he is talking to the Samaritan woman tells us that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. Worshiping god requires a right mental grasp of who God really is along with a spiritual, emotional affection for His worth. To worship God in spirit and in truth means having a right understanding of God’s nature and a right valuing of God’s worth (his worth is limitless). To worship God is to value and treasure him above ALL things.
“For worship is, essentially, the reverse of sin. Sin began (and begins) when we succumb to the temptation, “You shall be as gods.” We make ourselves the center of the universe and dethrone God. By contrast, worship is giving God his true worth; it is acknowledging Him to be the Lord of all things, and the Lord of everything in our lives. He is, indeed, the Most High God!”  Sinclair B Ferguson  Think about that for a second. Worship of God is the reverse of sin. It answers the question, “who will be the God of your life, yourself or God almighty?”
Worship has both an inner essence and outer expressions. The inner essence of worship is an ever-present attitude of love, admiration and awe; a sense of and desire for extreme submission to the object of worship.
- The inner essence of worship creates the outer acts of worship
- If the outer acts are missing or minor, so is the inner essence
- If the outer acts are not done solely as fruit of the inner essence then they are vain,fake (Matthew 15:8,9)
Hebrews 13:15,16 says that true worship WILL live in expression and demonstration; both in acts of the mouth – acts of praise, repentance, confession, singing; and acts of love – carried out by the body, the hands in service. Worship is an attitude of the heart and soul that absolutely has to overflow into outer expressions.
Is God Almighty the Lord of our lives or are we? Do our lives center on the worship of God with demonstrations and expressions of that worship?