Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all
your mind and with all your strength.
Mark 12:30 (NIV)
When Jesus said you must “worship in spirit,” he wasn’t referring to the Holy Spirit, but to your spirit. Made in God’s image, you are a spirit that resides in a body, and God designed your spirit to communicate with him. Worship is your spirit responding to God’s Spirit.
God-pleasing worship is deeply emotional and deeply doctrinal. We use both our hearts and our heads.
The best style of worship is the one that most authentically represents your love for God.
God is pleased when our worship is thoughtful.Jesus’ command to “love God with all your mind” is repeated four times in the New Testament. God is not pleased with thoughtless singing of hymns, perfunctory praying of clichés, or careless exclamations of “Praise the Lord,” because we can’t think of anything else to say at that moment. If worship is mindless, it is meaningless. You must engage your mind.
God is pleased when our worship is practical.
The Bible says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” 11 Why does God want your body? Why doesn’t he say, “Offer your spirit”? Because without your body you can’t do anything on this planet. In eternity you will receive a new, improved, upgraded body, but while you’re here on earth, God says, “Give me what you’ve got!” He’s just being practical about worship.
Matt Redman, a worship leader in England, tells how his pastor taught his church the real meaning of worship. To show that worship is more than music, he banned all singing in their services for a period of time while they learned to worship in other ways. By the end of that time, Matt had written the classic song “Heart of Worship”:
because the song itself is not what You’ve required.
You search much deeper within
than the way things appear.
You’re looking into my heart.14
The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.
Point to Ponder: God wants all of me.Verse to Remember: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (NIV)
Question to Consider: Which is more pleasing to God right now—my public worship or my private worship? What will I do about this?


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