Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing – Psalm 100:1-2.

Scripture denotes worship as a way of life and specific activity. Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord because he didn’t want to tell Nineveh what God He gave him to minister to them about their wickedness so he ran from God. He went to Joppa and boarded a ship, in running he caused others to be in jeopardy. The Lord sent a storm when the crew asked who he was his reply was “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land”.

Jonah was speaking of his whole manner of life. He reverence God, but he was also running, and because of his disobedience, he was thrown overboard, but the Lord had prepared a large fish to swallow Jonah giving him time to seek God and time to submit to what God instructed him to do. Worship includes being obedient to God’s instructions whether its verbal or by His written Word. We can worship God and yet live a live style of disobedience.

Many attend church on Sunday and worship the Lord through music, clapping, dancing, and singing, but yet after worship they leave the church and return to their normal lifestyle of sin. We worship God by glorifying God by ascribing to Him the honor and adoration due Him because of His excellence, the narrow concept of worship. We also glorify God by reflecting His glory to others, the broader way of life manner of worship.

The Apostle Paul admonished believers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice (I Beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service – Romans 12:1). This is our spiritual act of worship. To offer your body to God as a living sacrifice involves offering your mind, emotions, and will to Him. It is the wholehearted dedication to God of heart, mind, will, words, and deeds, all that you are, have, and do.

To render heartfelt worship to God, we must be in awesome of His majesty, holiness and love otherwise, our praise and adoration may be no more than empty words. An example of this is how secular entertainers acknowledge that it is God that have given them riches and fame, but they don’t worship God in their lifestyle. The voice they have God gave them, but rather than using their voice to magnify the Lord, they magnify Satan by the songs they sing. Whether its singing, acting, sports, it is God that has given them the ability to do what they do, it should be glorifying God in their lifestyle.

Both private and corporate worship are taught in Scripture, many worship corporately, but they don’t have private worship when they’re at home. The vitality and genuineness of corporate worship is to a large degree of ones private worship. If we aren’t spending time daily worshiping God, we’re not apt to contribute to the corporate experience of worship. If we aren’t worshiping God during the week, how can we expect to genuinely participate in church? Yes, we may indeed go through the motions and think we have worship, but how can we honor and adore Him on Sunday whom we have not taken time to praise and give thanks to during the week?

Another essential in worship is that we must always come to God through Christ. Without Christ, we can’t go into the presence of God. We can’t serve God and dismiss Christ. We can’t pray to Mary and dismiss Jesus, the Son of God. Mary the mother of Jesus Christ had to recognize that He was her Lord and Savior. Our prayers will not be answered without asking in the name of Jesus. Our thoughts must be cleansed, our heart must be cleansed, our worship must be sincere to come into the presence of God.

In order to truly worship God, our hearts must be filled with gratitude. We must have the Spirit of the Living God living within our beings. We serve Him by our lifestyle, our behavior, our character, our language, our money, our time and adoration of who He is in His excellence, majesty, and holiness.