Growing Our Worship of God

12 February 2021
Randy Wollf

Person looking out over the mountains

Our God is an amazing God! In this Worship Changes Our Perspective Blog Series, I’ve only touched on a few of His attributes. As we’ve seen, God is sovereign, love, wise, good, just, and faithful. Yet, He’s also infinite, all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing, holy, truth, merciful, gracious, never changing, and the list of His attributes goes on. As we worship God in these and other ways, our thoughts about God and life change. The result – actions that reflect more of God’s perspective.

So, the big question now is how do we grow in our worship of God so that our life and leadership will increasingly reflect His character?

Our knowledge of God influences the extent to which we can worship Him as He really is and order our life accordingly. How do we grow in our knowledge of God? Even though we do see evidence of God’s character in His creation, we learn about Him primarily from His Word, the Bible. How do we get to know someone better? By spending time with that person. In the same way, as we truly listen to God as He speaks through His Word, not just reading the words on a page but really hearing the voice of God as He reveals Himself and His desires for us, we’ll be able to worship God more completely and this will impact the way we think and live.

Immersing ourselves in God’s Word is so vitally important. Yet, we also experience God as we go through the day, as we sense His guidance and conviction, as He gives us words to say, as He bolsters our faith and empowers us to move forward, as He answers both big and small prayer requests. Our experience of God dramatically shapes our knowledge of Him. Obviously, it’s important that our experiential knowledge conforms to the biblical revelation of God’s nature. However, this highly personal knowledge of God often lodges itself deep within our hearts and informs our worship.

So, growing deeper in our knowledge of God is a lifelong process because our finite minds are constantly arranging snapshots of the Infinite into a meaningful composite that makes biblical and experiential sense. Both biblical and experiential knowledge combine to help us know God more deeply. This is different from knowledge of God. You see, worship based strictly on a knowledge of God, tends to be an intellectual acknowledgement of who God is. This certainly has value, but lacks the emotional, “from the heart,” side of worship. Our experiential knowledge of God often has a strong emotional component, which can drive us to our knees in heartfelt adoration of God. Yet, this kind of experience-based worship can sometimes be misguided if it’s not anchored to a biblically-based knowledge of God. Both types of knowledge are important as we seek to grow in our worship of God.

We can also strengthen our worship through structured worship times that serve as a rallying point for a lifestyle of worship. These might include church worship services, set aside times for personal worship, and prayer times where we intentionally adore God.

Music is a powerful worship medium and so we would be wise to make the most of this natural worship approach. We can listen to worship music, sing worship songs, and even play worship songs on an instrument. One of the great things about good worship music is that it keeps on playing in our minds, reminding us of God’s greatness, love, and other attributes.

Another approach to strengthening our worship of God is to practice thankfulness in all situations. Invariably, when we look for the positive especially in challenging situations, we are forced to think of God’s character – something that is always positive. Let’s say that I’m mired in a messy conflict. People are saying hurtful things and the tension is mounting. To be honest, I might be hard-pressed to find anything positive in the conflict itself. Yet, I can still look to my sovereign Lord who, despite our persistent disobedience, is still working out His ultimate plans. Thank you, Lord, that you reign supreme even over this conflict. Thank you that you are all-powerful and can use this trial for good. Thank you that you are a generous and wise God who lavishes wisdom upon those who ask for it in faith. You’ve got this God. Help me to trust you every step of the way.

One more way to strengthen your worship life is to hang out with true worshippers. As we rub shoulders we those who know God intimately and who worship Him from the heart, we’ll be drawn into the same kind of worshipful lifestyle.

In this series, I’ve suggested that thinking deep thoughts about God that come out of a growing relationship with Him influences every aspect of our lives. Our view of God impacts how we interact with people, respond to difficulties, discern and implement vision, manage conflict, conduct performance reviews, mobilize a team to achieve excellence, and just about everything else. The call upon all of us as Christians is to grow as worshippers of God, so that we can lift Him up. In the process, we’ll find that our perspective and our lives get a lift, as well.

Blogs in the Worship Changes Our Perspective Series

Note: MinistryLift Members can also watch video versions of the blogs (the first one is open to everyone).