What all comes to your mind when you think about worship? Typically, the first thing we think about is praise or adoration for a divine being, or something or someone great. Mainstream churches have their worship or praise teams who spearhead the singing aspect of the service. They strive to play and sing the songs in a way that helps people to worship. They strive to praise God, although we would probably question whether God is getting much glory from their music. But that is another subject. 

We talk about going to church to worship God. The song leader picks songs that allow us to praise God for Who He is and what He has done. We call that worship. The devotional leader and preacher also help shape our worship by drawing our minds to God, His greatness, and all the wonderful things He does for us. That is all part of worship. It is standing in awe of Who God is and reverencing Him. 

We also talk about false worship when people lift something or someone higher than God. Whether consciously or subconsciously, they think that something or someone is better than God or can give them what they want or need more than God can. One way to spot worship is how much people praise something or someone. There is normal praise when someone does something very well, but false worship goes beyond that to worship-level praise that misplaces God for Who He is. 

If we go to the Old Testament, we can see the praise aspect of worship coming out various times. You don’t need to read very far in the book of Psalms to see the Psalm writer worshipping God. He enumerates Who God is. He details the many impressive ways that God has worked in his life. He calls on others to worship and praise this great God. The Children of Israel, after crossing the Red Sea, listed the ways God was great and had worked powerfully in their lives. They sang and praised Him. 

The aspects of awe and praise are a good start to understanding worship, but they aren't the only things. The story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel shows another aspect of worship, closely connected to praise and awe of God. After the fire fell from God, burning up the sacrifice, altar, and water, the Bible says, And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God (1Ki 18:39). The people fell on their faces. You don’t have true worship until you recognize that you are less than God, or the thing or person you are worshipping. These people saw their smallness before their great God, and it caused them to fall on their faces, showing their subjection to God. You can see this coming out repeatedly with the Old Testament people. Whenever they interacted with angels or God’s presence, they would fall on their faces, acknowledging they are under God and are subject to Him. 

When we read about times of worship in the Old Testament, another aspect is repeatedly mentioned. What did Noah do after he came out of the ark? He offered a sacrifice. What did Abram do after God promised to make of him a great nation? He offered a sacrifice. What was involved in most of the daily worship at the temple? They offered sacrifices. Worshipping God, something, or someone will naturally lead to a desire to give up something to whom or what you are worshipping. That is how worship works. You cannot worship God without eventually being willing to give up something for Him. You cannot worship things on the earth without eventually being willing to give up something for them. 

In the Old Testament, they offered several different offerings, but one particularly catches my eye: the burnt offering. It was a voluntary sacrifice they would offer whenever the individual wanted to express his total surrender to God. It was not in the list of mandatory sacrifices, but God said that if you want to express voluntary surrender to Me, this is how you do it. They would bring a bull, ram, or dove to the temple and offer a sacrifice to God. Their worship of God was so strong that they were willing to give up an animal voluntarily to God to express their surrender to Him. 

Does the New Testament mention anything about offering a sacrifice to God, or was that only an Old Testament thing? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Rom 12:1-2). The New Testament calls us to a far greater sacrifice than bringing an animal from our flock! We are called to offer our lives to God. We haven’t truly worshipped God until we voluntarily bring our lives to God and lay them on the altar. It is the natural end or result of true worship. We see how great God is, we are in awe of all He has done for us, we recognize our smallness before Him, and we, in turn, lay down our lives in surrender. Ben Witherington III wrote, “Worship, by definition, is where the creature recognizes that he or she is a creature and God alone is the Creator. Worship is an act of submission, of placing oneself under the deity.” A.W. Tozer wrote, “If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week.” If my Sunday worship doesn’t move me to worship with my sacrificed life, I didn’t worship. Too often, I only think of worship as those feelings of awe when I think of God; that is barely the beginning. 

Circling back to the title of this article: What does your worship cost you? One of the ways we can identify what we worship is to look for the things in life we are willing to sacrifice for. What things in my life am I quick to give up my time so I can have them? For what things in life are easy for me to spend money on? If it is hard for me to give up my time or money for God, can I honestly say I worship Him? If it is easier to sacrifice for my job or hobbies than for Kingdom things, what does that say about my worship? I understand we need to make money to provide for our families, but what about our discretionary income? The greater our worship, the greater our willingness to sacrifice for the object of our worship. If someone worships their pickup or hobbies, it will cost them; they will put a lot of time and money into them. If someone worships God, they will put a lot of time and money into Him and His work. 

What does your worship cost you?