Worship

“The Lord says: ‘These people come near to Me with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is made up only of rules taught by men.’” Isaiah 29:13
Somewhere along your Christian walk – if you haven’t been there already – you’ll fall into the trap of thinking that worshipping God is primarily about what we say and what we sing in church. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Our words mean nothing if our life doesn’t match them. This is true of our witness to the world, and it is also true of our worship to God. We might be singing ‘I surrender all’ but there are areas of sin in our life that we refuse to hand over to God. We might say ‘Bless you’ when someone sneezes, but never go out of our way to help anybody in need. See James 2:14-17.
First, let’s talk about what worship is not. Worship is not following a set of ceremonial rules. It is not (necessarily) singing songs, closing your eyes, raising your hands, sitting, kneeling, or lying with your face on the floor. If our hearts are far from God while we are doing these things, we are not truly worshipping Him.
Christianity is not religion, in the sense of following a set of rules to receive salvation. It is relationship with God. Worship is the expression of our hearts to God for Who He is. We may express that to Him in words or song, and we are also to express it in how we speak to and treat other people. Our whole life is to be lived in an attitude of worship – bringing glory to God.