Our main relationship to God is as worshipers. Worship is our response to God. We do this privately in our prayers and study. We respond to God with gratefulness every time we eat, if it is our habit to pray before eating. Our corporate worship is no less a response to God, our Creator and Redeemer.

What is our corporate worship to look like? It is important to realize that our worship service is not a show put on for an audience. It is to be orderly, interesting, and inspiring towards spiritual ideals and Christian service (according to our Book of Worship). But the primary audience to be pleased is the Lord. How do we know what would please the Lord? He told us in his Word. Our rule for what belongs in a worship service is this: what God tells us he wants is what we do. This is sometimes called the regulative principle.

Public worship should be directed to the total person involving intellect, emotion and will. Public worship directs our response to God, and encourages us to respond with our whole person to the Almighty. We learn with our minds and feel with our hearts. Most importantly, our presence with God in worship affects our wills so we are changed. Worship is an act of bending our will to fit the will of God. Worship is not a place for passive spectators or critics, but a place where we are drawn in to respond to God’s glory and love.

Psalm 95 is structured the way we order our worship services. We are called together into God’s presence (v1). We praise God for his greatness (v3-4). We acknowledge that all we have comes from him—we are his sheep under his care (v7). We also are to hear his Word with faith (v 8).

Most of the time, we are a little cynical when we hear things. A pill will make us grow hair or lose weight. A business deal will make us rich or famous. Some clothes will make us popular or attractive. We see the infomerical and we are a little skeptical. We have sales resistance. We know that there is no free lunch. We don’t believe everything we read in the paper.

But with the Word of God, it is to be different. We ask the Holy Spirit, "What am I to learn from this Word? What am I to feel from this Word? What will I do because of this Word?" Our minds, emotions and will are opened up to the Word of God.

Do you sit with an open heart when you hear the Word read and preached? Have you prepared your heart to hear what God has for you when you come to worship? Don’t harden your heart to what he has for you.

A major part of our worship is listening for the Holy Spirit to make the Word alive in our hearts. Pray for the preacher. He needs it. Sometimes you can really tell when he is preaching that he needs your prayers. Pray for yourself that you may be open. And pray to the Holy Spirit to work in your open heart what is pleasing to him.

When this happens, we get the opposite of what the children of Israel got. That generation never entered into the Sabbath rest of God. But we can. We can know the rest and wholeness in our lives now as well as the eternal rest of God in heaven.

Do we want unity? It starts in worship together. This is both in formal worship and in times of prayer and studying God’s Word together. This is one reason why it is important for us all, as often as we can to respond to this invitation to come to worship the Lord together. Worship is at the heart of what we do.

Are you a worshiper of God? Have you come to join others with humble hearts to worship God, praise him and receive openly from his Word? You will find his power in your life the rest of the week as well. May your life be one of worship. May our life together be one of worship.