man lifting hands to sky during a storm

  If you have visited a variety of religious services, I think you will agree that there are more differences in styles of worship than there are religions. The order of worship varies, the music varies, and the length and content of the messages vary, etc. Since that is true, we need to know if any of them are better than the others. To put it another way, is it true that it doesn’t matter how you worship as long as you actually do some kind of worship?

   It can be confusing when you try to compare the different kinds of worship, but I think there is a way to discover when worship really pleases God and when it doesn’t. Here is the key. All worship is either law-centered worship or it is awe-centered worship.

   Let me explain. If we approach God out of a sense of duty, our focus is on law. In other words, that kind of worship is driven by a desire to fulfill a set of expectations. Things like: How should I worship? What rules should I follow? Am I doing all the right things? Am I doing it enough? Finally, of course, is God impressed with the worship that I am doing?

   When we have done what we think is worship, we tend to walk away feeling good about ourselves. We may even be confident that our worship was good just because we came away feeling good about it. That, though, is exactly is the problem. Law-centered worship actually puts the focus on us, not on God.

   Awe-centered worship, on the other hand, is focused on how good and how great God is, instead of how good we feel or even how good our worship is. Before we can worship God with a deep sense of awe, first we must understand why God is awesome.

   Let me share some of those reasons. First, our worship of God should be filled with awe because He spoke this entire universe into existence. “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:8–9). The creative power of God is beyond what we could ever imagine, so we should be greatly in awe of Him.

   Jesus (God in human flesh) proved that He had absolute power over creation itself. Notice how the disciples responded with awe when Jesus instantly calmed a violent storm: “The men were amazed, and said, ‘What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?’” (Matthew 8:27). Jesus also proved that He had power over all physical life by healing everyone who came to Him and even by raising the dead back to life (see Luke 5:26, Matthew 8:16, and John 12:17).

   Now we come to the most important reason for feeling an immense awe for Christ. “Worthy is

[Jesus] the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12). By sacrificing Himself on the Cross for His followers, He gave all of us the opportunity to have eternal blessing. “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).

   Every time Christians get together it should be to, “… exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3). May our hearts be increasingly filled with an awe of our wonderful God. “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him” (Psalm 33:8).

   “God wants to see prayers that are filled with genuine praise and thanksgiving for what He has done in the past. He wants our hearts to be filled with awe and gratitude for His blessings. He wants us to set up memorials in our hearts testifying to the provisions He has given us.” — Michael Youssef