"Worship or Mere Ritual?"

by WXAN & KMHM General Manager, Doug Apple

Here is a question I encountered recently in a Bible study workbook: “In your opinion, which of the following best describes your personal experiences in most worship services of your church? Check one.

___1. I sense God's presence. I sense God instructs me. I rejoice with others at what God is doing in our midst. I am encouraged to live like Christ during the coming week.

___2. I sometimes experience God doing things in my life and in our church. Most of the time I go home feeling about like I did when I came.

___3. I seldom experience God doing anything in our worship service. They seem to be cold and mere ritual.”

O.K. Now that you have picked one of the three, the book goes on to pose this question: “Prior to worship, how much time do you normally spend preparing your heart?”

WOW! Good question!!!

In a discussion with a friend recently we both agreed that you could receive from God in any service if you were truly seeking and drawing near to Him. So this is the question: are we truly preparing our hearts going into each church service so that we may truly receive from God?

Psalm 96:8 gives us some pointers on preparing for worship: “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering and come into His courts.” 

As we enter into worship are we giving God the glory due Him? Sometimes our relaxed atmosphere in the modern “American” church can spoil the grandeur of drawing into the presence of God. If we are not careful a worship service can seem to us like a mere meeting. We need to prepare our hearts and minds ahead of time. We need to fix ourselves on the goal of giving glory to God.

The psalmist also writes that we are to “bring an offering”. Sure, we all bring offerings, right? But sometimes our minds wonder. We can begin to think that we are giving to our own church organization. That is not so. As God's people have always done, we bring an offering to the Lord. So don't lose the true meaning of what is taking place. When the offering is received at each service, we are giving to the Lord.

The verse ends with this: “…come into His courts.” This is a picture of moving from the “outer circle” to the “inner circle”. In our worship services we should be moving from the busy-ness of life in the outer circle towards the peace and presence of God in the inner circle.

If we prepare our hearts before services, then keep a proper perspective during services, we will no longer be checking numbers two or three on that questionnaire. We will be sensing God's presence every time we gather together as the Church!