Revelations 4:11
A view from Heaven
The passage gives us a view from Heaven which gives us an idea of what awaits us there: it is eternal worship to God who is truly worthy of worship because He is God. Every glimpse of Heaven that we have in the Bible is always a glimpse of worship and rejoicing because God is who He is.1
God demands, seeks and requests our worship because He deserves it, because it is the nature and destiny of a Christian to worship Him.2
What is worship?
Literally, to worship is “to fall down before” or “bow down before” God. Worship is a an attitude of our spirit. It’s an internal, individual action, it should be done all the time in our lives, regardless of place or situation. Therefore, Christians ought to worship all the time, seven days a week. Because worship is more than just singing praise and worship hymns, or going to church on Sundays, attending Bible studies, or reading our Bible daily.
Furthermore, John 4:23-24, tells us that we must worship “in spirit and in truth”. This has to do with our innermost being and requires several things. First, we must be born again. Without the Holy Spirit residing within us, we cannot respond to God in worship because we do not know Him. “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11b). The Holy Spirit within us is the one who energizes worship because He is in essence glorifying Himself, and all true worship glorifies God.
Second, worshiping in spirit and in truth requires a mind centered on God and renewed by Truth. Paul exhorts us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:1b, 2b). Only when our minds are changed from being centered on the many things that are around us to being centered on God can we worship in spirit and in truth.
Something to think about...
One very important thing that this study shows us is the fact that one must know God (as opposed to knowing about God), in order to become true worshipers, because genuine worship is a product of an intimate desire to for God's fellowship. In fact, the late A.W. Tozer once defined 'true worship' as being: “personally and hopelessly in love with God.”3
Now the question would be is that have we ever stopped to consider that being 'personally and hopelessly in love with God' should come forth as a response to the Lord's ultimate public display of affection for us in the Cross of Calvary, where He showed the seriousness of His love and desire for fellowship with us by dying for our sins just so that we could enter into a personal relationship with Him who loves us?
Genuine worship is a product of an intimate desire for God's fellowship.
Reflections:
Do we always examine ourselves with how we live our lives whether it is pleasing to the Lord in light of knowing that worship involves our daily walk with God here on earth?
For those of us who are serving in our respective ministries have we ever stopped to consider that whatever ministries we have right now will come to past but our worship belongs to eternity with God? Do we often stop and think if our ministries are the result of us being personally and hopelessly in love with God?
Knowing now that destiny in Heaven is to worship God have we ever stopped to think that our personal acts of worship here on earth is but a rehearsal to our ultimate destiny of worshiping God in eternity?
Our response
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there Is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24 .
1A.W. Tozer (1985) Whatever Happened to Worship p.14
2http://www.gotquestions.org/God-demand-worship.html
3Ibid
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