Pure worship is pure humility which is complete openness to God. Through this alone God fills us with his fullness, full and overflowing – always.
♦
Apart from pure worship we close our self both to God and our self, which then renders impossible the loving, life-sustaining richness that only an intimate relationship with him provides.
Worshipping God opens our heart to him – completely – through which, he provides the purest relational flow of love between himself and us at the highest and deepest levels – a love so powerful, it unbreakably binds us to our fellow believers (regardless of ethnic, cultural, or personal differences) and infiltrates the very hearts of those who hate him.
Apart from worshipping God, we cannot subdue our pride through God’s Holy Spirit-given powerful humility. Worshipping God renders impossible rejecting him in any way: whether as sin against him personally, against another person, or as sin against our very self. When we are in the act of worshipping God, it is impossible not to be at one with him, to yearn for him, cry out for him, obey him – to die for him, and each other.
Worshipping God is the one thing that destroys all self-made barriers between us and him. It is our means to recognize him as our sole, sovereign provider – for everything, including our self. It is our means to unite with his relational flow of crescendoing powerful love, transforming us from the unfathomable depths of our soul to the indescribable heights of our spirit.
We worship God for one reason: to live and transform by and within the very Author of Life, the Destroyer of Death; God our Father, God the Messiah and Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit – our comforter and teacher, God’s living presence, his personal manifestation of himself in us.
We worship God for one reason – to live!
Todd Beal
Truth Behind Reality 
I can’t imagine it being said any better, Todd, and I am so grateful to see you back at one of the things you do best – expressing your wisdom, hard-won from the forges of experience and adversity. To me, one of the strongest evidences of God’s existence is that a belief in and reliance on Him results in real changes in the human spirit. Once you’ve experienced the love of God, it becomes much more difficult to fall prey to habits that alienate us from him. This is not something we can manufacture within ourselves alone. He has trod the path, and it is straight and narrow, but it leads to safety and peace.
Welcome back!
LikeLike
Michael,
| To me, one of the strongest evidences of God’s existence is that a belief in and reliance on Him results in real changes in the human spirit. |
What a great and true statement! I had a very intense conversation with an atheist several months ago. Throughout our entire discussion, I used the essence of your statement as my base argument for God’s existence. The bottom line; until one has a heart-experience with God, either God does not exist according to that person’s heart and mind, or in fact he does exist to that person, but as a non-Biblical version of whom God Biblically says he is.
The awesome part about what you said is that this ongoing experience results in real changes in the human spirit. I will add further to this; these real changes are also lasting changes, changes that authentically, “inexplicably”, change us from the inside out: “He used to be so mean but now he is so good to everyone he meets”. These changes are not the result of simply reading and accepting scripture with our head alone. They are the resultant transformation of Jesus literally rebuilding us from the inside out with his power, facilitated through the Holy Spirit. Authentically experiencing God is not a pipedream; it is not a delusion or illusion; it is not imagined or logically constructed. Our God is the one and only Living God who created us to live in his perfect and powerful Holy presence forever, even while living here on earth.
The Scientific Method states; for a theory to move forward into the realm of reality, it must first produce testable, repeatable consistent results in the physical world. There is no greater evidence of this than a wife abuser, child abuser, drug addict, murderer, adulterer, and/or terrorist, who accepts Jesus into his heart, subsequently renounces his terrible ways, and then miraculously becomes and outwardly manifests the very opposite of what he once was – permanently. That is testable, repeatable, consistent results in the physical world. That is the scientific method, proven true by the very Living Truth that makes this method possible. If something is true, evidence will bear it out – always.
| Once you’ve experienced the love of God, it becomes much more difficult to fall prey to habits that alienate us from him. This is not something we can manufacture within ourselves alone. |
Absolutely true! The results speak for themselves. The difference between changing (or quitting) something on our own, and changing (or quitting) something through Christ is the quality and longevity of that change. If we change something on our own, the results are merely cosmetic. We change our outward behavior yet remain exactly the same inside. This type of change is personally exhausting; it expends nonrenewable resources to outwardly maintain the illusion of an inward fix. The result is a compounding inner depletion which ultimately ends in mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical collapse. This type of change is much like trying to paint the illusion of skin over a bad wound: the façade works for a while, but sooner or later the underlying infection once again shows itself, not merely as visually worse than before, but as physical evidence of its now life-threatening nature.
When we change through Christ, he inwardly transforms the problem into a powerful and stabilizing strength. Not only does the habitually destructive behavior go away, but also at the same time something good and lasting takes its place. Once we experience God’s love, that life-changing experience makes everything else pale in comparison. Once one experiences the real thing, a facade holds no value regardless of how convincing it seems.
| He has trod the path, and it is straight and narrow, but it leads to safety and peace. |
A great leader always leads the way – out front. And through his example, those who choose to follow reach the same destination, walking the very same path, adopting the same set of actions and the same situation-specific approach to life as that leader. Jesus did this and does this even now for us. There is but one way – his way: he is The Way. As you said, the path is straight and narrow. There is no alternative; there is no personal – “I’m gonna do it my way”, or, “Essentially, all religious beliefs lead equally to God” – path. We either walk in his steps, the trail he personally blazed here on earth; we either navigate life on his terms, stated personally and explicitly by him in the Holy Bible; or we don’t ever get to see him, experience him, stand in his Holy presence, except to hear him say, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” There is no other way!
Michael, it feels good to speak with you again. Thanks for your hunger for God, and thanks for your living testimony as born out in your comments here. Thanks for welcoming me back. It feels right – it feels good – to write again. I truly enjoy reading your comments. I truly enjoy your fellowship – what a pleasure. Thank you.
LikeLike
Wow. Now that’s an argument for worship! Great post – not much else I can add.
LikeLike
Alright! Thanks for stopping by Lance.
LikeLike
You have expressed so beautifully the very essence of worship. One interesting tidbit (which you will hear very soon (IRL) that the universe was created to worship Him automatically. However, humans are the only living thing that God allowed a choice in worshipping Him. Trust me, He doesn’t need our praise or worship, because He is worshipped already through creation, for even the rocks will cry out if we fail to make the decision to worship. God has given us the choice for NOW, however, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. Making the choice to worship Him in the now, in the every day moments, is to live. Without daily worship we exist. Wow, didn’t mean to be so long winded! 🙂 Have a great day Todd! Praying for you!
LikeLike
| Making the choice to worship Him in the now, in the every day moments, is to live. Without daily worship we exist. |
Great statement! Thanks for reading Christy. I look forward to your Sunday message.
LikeLike