Consecrated for Worship

 Worshiping God is one of the most important things we do, as believers. The first commandment of the 10 Commandments is for us to worship God alone and only serve Him. He deserves all of our worship, and the Bible is full of admonitions for us to worship God as individuals and in groups of believers. So, how are we to worship God? Of course, there are many ways to worship the Lord in song, in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word. The method of worship is important, but I would submit that there is one thing that is much more important than the songs we sing and how we show God His worth to us. We are to worship the Lord in a worthy manner. We must have our hearts right before we can truly worship God well. So how do we prepare our hearts? We see a great insight from Moses when God told him what to do for the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai. (Exodus 19:14) God instructed Moses to go down the mountain to the people and consecrate them for worship. Also, Moses had them wash their clothes before entering into worship. I think we can all apply this to our worship.

As I have said many times before, worship is showing God His worth to us. Therefore, the main element of worship is His dominion in our lives. He must be our Lord. We must be consecrated to Him. That means we must be set apart from the things of this world and from sinful practices before we can seriously enter worship. If there is anything or anyone else that is more important to us than God in any way, He is not the One of ultimate worth to us. Therefore, before we go to a time of worship, we must set ourselves aside for Him, anew and afresh. We must declare our allegiance to Him as Lord of all. Also, the fact that God told the people to wash their clothes is a way of showing us we need to be clean to enter worship. We need to confess any sins which we have failed to address in our lives. This includes sins against other people and against God Himself. That is why Jesus told us to be reconciled to others before going to worship. See what I mean? Worship must come from a consecrated life and a clean heart. Let's do these things each time before we begin our worship, and I believe we will see amazing results as God blesses our time with Him.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Exodus 20-22.