“My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my soul.  Awake, harp and lyre; I will awaken the dawn!  I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to You among the nations.  For Your lovingkindness is great above the heavens, and Your truth reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Your glory above all the earth.”  Psalm 108:1-5

In the United States, we have officially entered the “Christmas Season”.  My wife prefers a clear delineation between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  From her perspective, one doesn’t play Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving.  As I come from a different perspective, I’ve been known to bend and break that rule much to her consternation.  I have no problem playing “Christmas music” occasionally throughout the year.  Further, as I was in choirs from elementary school through college, I’m used to singing them on a regular basis beginning in September.  Whether one enjoys Christmas music all year round or for a few weeks of the year really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.  What does matter is our perspective.  While I have many “favorite” Christmas songs, one that I’d like to discuss is “O Come All Ye Faithful” which reminds us to adore our God.  It is truly my desire to worship God at Christmas time.  However, I am regularly frustrated by services that are filled with solos and special numbers which prevent congregational worship and serve more to entertain than draw us to worship.  I would much prefer a quiet service that encourages introspection and united worship from the heart, mind and soul.  In that vein, I’d like to consider what it means to adore God.  The definitions of adore that I found were:  worship and venerate, love and respect, laud and magnify.  I find this to be a fairly comprehensive as I’ll explain.

Clearly we are called to worship God.  In fact Exodus 20:1-6 reminds us that God is the only one we are to worship.  While many of us worship with our mouths during worship services, are we really worshipping or are we just repeating familiar words?  Further, is it respectful of the God of Heaven: Father, Son and Holy Spirit or is it merely a habit or an emotional response?  I have to admit that on occasion, I have to stop myself and focus to worship God as He deserves.   In Psalm 99:5 and 9 we are reminded that we worship God because He is Holy.  No other being or entity can claim that.  We also worship Him because He is Lord over all.  None other can compare to Him.  (Psalm 97)  He is also, the righteous God of our salvation.  (Psalm 65:5)  When we contemplate the persons of the Trinity, the character of Our God and His command of all that has being, how can we not fall down and worship God from the depths of our being.

“And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”  (Matthew 22:37)  Despite God’s grandeur, He desires a loving relationship with us.  Individually we are His children.  Corporately, we are the bride of Christ.  Both of these terms describe loving interaction.  Consider the other gods of the Old Testament, the Greek and Roman gods, or the other religions that surround us today.  It’s all about appeasement, fear and lack of certainty.  It is never about love on any level.  In contrast, God has loved us first, Christ has laid down His life for us, the Holy Spirit comforts us and guides us; it’s all about relationship and the love of God for us.  In response, we love Him as well.  Love and respect must be the basis of our adoration.  Nothing we do can repay God and God does not need our love, but He longs for it.  Therefore, love and respect must also be aspects of our worship.

Christ tells us that true worship is that done “in spirit and in truth”.  (John 4:24)  Our state of our mind and soul plays an essential part in our worship.  In order to truly engage in worship, we must have an attitude of trust.  As adoration is also lauding and magnifying how can we laud or magnify God if we do not trust Him implicitly with every aspect of our lives?  We must trust Him in our poverty as well as our wealth.  We must trust Him in our sickness as well as our health.  We must trust Him in our loss as much as our gain.  We trust Him in our pain as much as our comfort.  If we do not, we cannot truly testify to His love to the world, nor can we live in such a way that He is magnified.  It’s not that we always understand or see the benefit, but we trust God’s character and His purposes.  Thankfully, we don’t do that on our own, but through the grace of God in Christ.  As the father of the demon possessed boy cried out, we can say “I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).  Consider also the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthian 12:9 who reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient for us and God’s power is perfected in us when we acknowledge our weakness and rely on His work in us.  When this is our perspective, we set aside jealousy and bitterness which inhibit worship and testify to God’s greatness and mercy no matter our condition.  In this, we magnify Him to the world.

Ultimately our adoration of God is evident not just in the songs we sing on Sunday morning or at Christmas time, but also in the way we live our lives on a daily basis.  Understanding who God is, the loving relationship that we have with Him and trusting Him allow us to worship Him fully with our whole being…mind, body and soul.  We hold nothing back because we know the one in whom we believe.   As we celebrate the coming of Christ our King, let us adore our God, worship Him, love Him and magnify Him as He most certainly deserves for the love and kindness that He has bestowed on us.

May our Lord direct your path,

Will