Hunger. Jon L Dybdahl

      Third, let your new experience of worship transform your corporate experience. One student who studied the topic of worship came back and told how understanding worship itself had transformed her corporate worship experience even though nothing in the actual order of service changed. She had been transformed personally, and that had altered her corporate worship. How does this happen? Pause before entering church and thank God for a place where His name can be praised. Ask Him to move in you and in others during the service. Enter the sanctuary with joy, thanking God for inviting you and for another week of life. Look at other parishioners as brothers and sisters in worship and thank God for them. Kneel briefly as you sit down and then start your worship immediately. Participate fully in every part of the service, listening to the prayers and singing the songs from your heart. Do everything as an offering to God. You are there not to get a blessing, but to give a blessing, having come to bless and to worship God by joining in a corporate worship fest. Not all will know what you are doing, but getting even a few to start joining you will transform the spirit of the service. The worship service will become different even though outwardly it appears to remain the same. And in the end, the order of service may itself begin to alter.

      As I teach many eager seminary students, some assume that just changing the order of service or the type of music will bring a worship renewal. That is not true. What needs to alter are people’s hearts and minds. When people meet God, worship will transform itself naturally. The order of service and music can help facilitate true worship, but having the right heart for worship is still the key.

      Conclusion

      Humanity’s initial true response to God’s action and presence was worship. That never ends. The book of Revelation portrays the inhabitants of heaven in worship forever. Many things begin and then end. But worship for true believers never ceases. Shouldn’t we heed God’s call and start experiencing real worship now? It is one thing that we can enjoy forever.

      When we truly worship, we begin at a deep level to see God in all His love and glory. The natural next step is to look at ourselves. When Isaiah did that (Isaiah 6), he immediately found himself overwhelmed with a keen sense of his sin and unworthiness. Following that sequence, our next chapter deals with suggestions to help us take the step of serious self-examination and find God’s solution to our deep need.

      8 John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Mission (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), p. 11.

      9 Note the whole passage in Matthew 22:34–40 and the parallel in Mark 12:28–31.

      10 See Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21.

      11 Gerhard Friedrich and Geoffrey W. Bromiley, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), Vol VI, pp. 758–766.