How Does Worship Start?

Worship is something that everyone in the world does, but the objects of worship differ from person to person. For some, their object of worship is money. These people dive into money-making with their whole force of will; they eat, sleep, and breathe it, or they flounder and enter a state of desperation when their money is endangered. Others worship their friends, making all decisions that involve their friend relationships their top priority, and becoming caged in a world where other people's opinions of them determine the direction of their lives. Others do the same with their boyfriend/girlfriend, and when this relationship flounders, their world is rocked and damaged irreparably. Many too make their own desires the object of their worship, refusing to ever defer to another, denying that others have value or that they could be wrong.

This kind of worship is ultimately secular humanism, which results in the view that "I" am the most important person or thing in the world, and that there is nothing more important than what I believe to be good and just. Selfishness rules this person, and directs him or her to view every decision through the filter of "does this do what I want it to?"

For us as Christians, real worship is the worship of Jesus, and we strive to place the worship of our Lord above the given value of everything else around us. If He is indeed the Lord that we serve, then the lens that we see the world through should not be "what do I want," but rather "what does He want." This view requires a turn away from selfishness and to selflessness. Both God and others must be greater in estimation that we are. This logical progression is reflected too in the Biblical text, where Jesus says that the greatest command is to love God above everything else, and to love others the way we love ourselves.

That type of worship has a starting place: belief. We cannot worship our Lord without first believing that He is who He says He is. In effect, that belief is the first real act of worship that one can engage in, in that it is the first time that he or she has ever ascribed such worth to someone or something that actually IS worth it. When a person first glorifies Him by believing and trusting what the Word says about Him, he begins a life of worship that will involve that continued belief, service, adoration, etc.

It follows then that when we pursue another to trust in Jesus Christ, we are attempting to create another worshiper. Their initial act of trust and faith is honorable, a beautiful sacrifice that is pleasing to Him. All believers have the responsibility to seek out those people and to be available to aid them in coming to understand that Jesus is the only worthy object of worship. In this way, all believers are expected to be a leader of worship. It is our place to worship, and to call others to do the same in life, in service, and in word.