Worship

Dan Watson joins us to share a message from Judges 6 about the importance of worshipping and trusting God. Though we are all broken jars, God can use His light to shine through us, and we can celebrate His victory with trumpets.

Have you ever been confronted with the reality of God’s wrath, which scared you away from desiring to know Him intimately? As Louie Giglio digs deep into Revelation 6-8, we see how grace and wrath coexist.

Louie Giglio joins us for another week of All Consuming Fire. Through studying Revelation 5, we see that the only one worthy of all of our worship and praise is the One who is and is to come.

Louie Giglio continues another week of All Consuming Fire, a collection diving deeper into the book of Revelation. In this talk, he focuses on the throne, the Trinity, perpetual worship, and the throne as our anchor through the study of Revelation 4.

A few summers ago, we were on a family vacation at the beach. Lauren set up on the shore with a chair, umbrella, and book while the kids and I ran into the water to take advantage of some good-sized waves. We had a few boogie boards and got some pretty epic rides in. Every ten to fifteen minutes, I’d look to the shore to find Lauren, only not to be able to find her. In just ten to fifteen minutes, the currents had swept us far enough down the shoreline that I’d completely lost sight of her. This is what happens to all of us if we’re not careful. The winds and waves of this fallen world will pull us along without us hardly feeling it, and we will look up and no longer be able to find where we started. John Calvin famously said, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.” This means you and I are prone to set up our own little thrones and seek from them what only the one true throne can provide. Think of how destructive and painful this can be. How could the most common idols of self, others, and the world possibly strengthen us and comfort us at the deepest level of our being? They can give us momentary pleasure or escape, but each has betrayed us, failed us, and lied to us. So much of our fear and anxiety comes from having our worship centered around the wrong throne. When I write the word worship, I’m not talking about simply singing, although that is a common expression of worship. I’m talking about attention! One theologian I know puts it this way: “Worship is an act of attention to the living God who rules, speaks and reveals, creates and redeems, orders and blesses.” My question for you, especially if you feel stuck or afraid or abandoned or forgotten, is this: Where is your attention? Where is your worship? Fortunately for the apostle John and for us, one of the elders around the throne said to John, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5). John turned and saw “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). The Lion is the Lamb. Jesus is worthy to open the scroll and its seals. Jesus unlocks the meaning of history. Jesus brings salvation and judgment to the world. Jesus administers mercy and justice, forgiveness and redemption. Jesus brings holiness and righteousness, wrath and peace. Jesus brings everything into focus. That’s why our eyes need to be fixed on Him and this throne. Why must we fight to focus our attention on His reign and rule over and above everything else? If not, we will drift. We’ll gather around smaller, weaker thrones, and we’ll despair, lose heart, and fade. God has more for you, though. He sees you, loves you, hasn’t abandoned you, and calls you back out to where the action is. This is an excerpt from Matt Chandler’s The Overcomers. To grab a copy of this resource, click here. “The Overcomers: How to Thrive in a Culture of Anxiety andOutrage,” by Matt Chandler. Copyright ©202 by att handler. Used bypermission of Thomas Nelson.

This talk concludes our “Anchor” series that has been taking us on a deeper dive into what holds our house together theologically. Jon Harkey teaches us about the extravagant worship of God and how it relates to His glory, radical grace, and our lives.

This talk kicks off a series taking a closer look at the three theological anchors of Passion City Church DC. Landon Lacy will start us out by giving us an overview of the glory of God, radical grace, and extravagant worship that define who we are as a people in this city.

So do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them…Are you not much more valuable than they?…But seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Matthew 6:25-26, 33-34 It is so easy to worry about our future or how we will meet our daily needs. In Matthew 6, Jesus talks about a mind-blowing reality: God is our Father in Heaven. This thought would have been revolutionary to the listeners of His sermon. They knew God was “The God who provides,” but a Father? And what’s more, He’s our Father? They knew the story of Abraham and Isaac, how God would ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son, only to stop him and provide a ram in the thicket instead. They had heard how Abraham responded by building an altar to God there on Mount Moriah, calling Him for the first time in Scripture “Jehovah Jireh” or “The-God-Who-Provides” because He provided a sacrifice and spared Abraham’s son.  But those listening to Jesus didn’t know then what we know now: That God was giving us a picture of redemption—and ultimately, He would not hold back when it came to His own son. He would offer him as the perfect sacrifice. Romans 8:32 says this about the way God provided for us: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” He has made a way back to a relationship with our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. The same intimate relationship Jesus has with His Father is now available to us by His life, death, and resurrection. We are now children of the God of the universe! As if it weren’t enough for the rest of our lives, how will He not, along with all that, give us our daily needs?  Remember and believe today that you can ask your Father for whatever you need. He not only gives us what we need, He himself is what we need, and when we have Him, we lack nothing.  Prayer: Father, when I am tempted to look to my own abilities to provide for myself, help me remember today that you are the ultimate source of everything I need. I entrust every circumstance into your able hands. Amen.

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.Hebrews 4:16 O Come All Ye Faithful has forever been one of my favorite Christmas songs! While every self-respecting musician has recorded their own rendition, I wanted to know the origins of the earliest hymn. It was written in Latin by John Francis Wade, a music copyist, and later adapted to English by Frederick Oakeley, an Anglican minister. Oakeley’s first attempt at an English title was, “Ye Faithful, Approach Ye.” While the original title didn’t stick around, the word “approach” stuck with me. It’s a word full of invitation and desire. It’s a request for our presence. It says, “Come near.” And it’s a reminder that God is not far off. He is not distant or hiding himself from us. And that is the story and miracle of Christmas. “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’” Luke 2:10-11 After four hundred years of silence, hope of our redemption was birthed once more. “Word of the Father now in flesh appearing.” Jesus came from Heaven to Earth to close the gap between God and man, to pay the price for our sin so that we might approach His throne of grace with confidence. Because He knows it’s at His throne that we “receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). The invitation for us today is to come adore the one who bought our healing, our wholeness and our peace with God. Come, encounter the compassion, comfort and kindness of our Savior. Come, approach with our heartache and our brokenness, with our wounds and our scars. Come, joyful and triumphant for our victor over sin, hurt and pain has arrived! -Melodie Malone

“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior.”—Martin Luther When we think about the word ‘idolatry,’ it’s hard not to bring to mind thoughts of the Old Testament, the Law, or maybe even the golden calf that Aaron and the people of Israel forged from their Egyptian gold at the foot of Mount Sinai. After all, idolatry was largely introduced through the Mosaic Law and the 10 Commandments. Though idolatry had been present from the moment sin entered the world, it was codified as the second commandment in Exodus 20:4-5, You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God… If you’ve grown up in or even around Church, you likely have a vague sense that idolatry is wrong. But like most of the other 10 Commandments, idolatry can feel distant and far off, an ancient word for an old-fashioned practice that doesn’t really apply to our advanced and more educated society. After all, we aren’t smelting ores or carving wooden statues in the likeness of otherwise invisible gods, right? Idolatry, by all biblical definitions, is certainly the practice of making and worshipping physical images and icons. But it’s also more than that. It’s the very misdirection of our worship.  It’s our hearts clinging and confiding in that which does not or cannot bring us peace or security. It is the elevation and glorification of anything other than God, which eventually leads to personal emptiness and separation from true life.  Idolatry is the raising to ultimate authority and value that which is not capable or worthy of holding that position. It is giving more credence and affection to something that is created as opposed to the Creator. What Are Our Modern-Day Idols? Idolatry may be an ancient word, but it is still a temptation and tactic that is very much at work in the hearts and minds of people today. As followers of Jesus, we must be vigilant to recognize our modern-day forms of idolatry and then quickly and decisively move to root out or “lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.”  Our faith and very lives might depend on this vigilance. John Piper defines an idol as “anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance in the place of a wholehearted reliance on the true and living God.” Less like a graven image or a golden calf, our idols today are often that which most capture our heart’s affection instead of God. This means the possibilities are rather wide and the specificity is rather personal. Often, our affections are aimed at good things. Our jobs. Our marriages or friendships. Our impact and significance in the world. It’s okay to enjoy or even love things like these, but where we go off track or wander into error is when our love for these things starts to climb above our love for God.  If our theology of idolatry and modern-day idols is truly built on a Biblical foundation centering around the worship of God, then counter to what culture would have us believe, there are no socially-acceptable idols. You can’t align with God’s view of worship if you’re living with a Jesus + __________ lifestyle. Jesus + enough money to make me comfortable. Jesus + my political party so I fit in with my peers. Jesus + a high enough title at work to where I feel significant.  That’s what Paul means when he wrote in Philippians 3:8-9:  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him… We are invited to enjoy the things around us, soak in the laughter and intimacy of good friendships, cheer for our favorite teams, and be good parents, spouses, sons, or daughters. We’re invited to love what we get to do with our skills or talents and to love things that are random, eccentric, or eclectically you.  Recognizing our idols doesn’t mean we have to immediately diminish and destroy anything that brings us joy. We just need to be wise and willing to accurately (by the Spirit and by the Scripture) define where our true affections are being directed. We don’t need to get rid of every rock that has found a place in our hearts. Instead, we should aim to take those rocks, your passions, your desires, your joys, and your loves, and build altars of worship to the God who is worthy of every affection.  How Do We Identify Our Idols? Because idolatry is misguided worship and an idol is a faulty ordering of ultimate affection, there are a thousand different nuances of what idols take priority for each of us personally. Which means you have to do the intentional work of recognizing what you may be idolizing. You’ll be hard-pressed to remove what you don’t recognize, so identifying and naming your idols is crucial to your fight for freedom. How do we identify and know when an idol is taking up vast real estate in our hearts and minds? We spend time gauging how we are interacting with our passions and desires. We ask intentional questions and surround ourselves with Godly community that can walk with us and know our hearts. To see three practical ways to identify your idols as outlined in Scripture, turn to 1 John 2:15-17: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Take note that the passage begins with a mandate to guard our affections. If we want to walk free from idolatry, we’ll need to not give our affections to the world or its things. John then goes on to describe what some of these worldly things, or idols, are: The desires of the flesh. The desires of the eyes. The pride of life. Let’s take these three phrases out of the general and move each into the specific. What are the desires of the flesh? We can read Paul’s description of this in Galatians 5:16-21. It’s the words, actions, or behaviors that gratify our sinful nature more than our Spirit-led nature. Said another way, what are you doing physically that isn’t aligned with the worship of God?  What are the desires of the eyes? Namely, those things that you don’t currently possess but are wanting or wishing to. Maybe it’s comparison. Jealousy or covetousness. Maybe it’s the judgment we enjoy passing on others or the fears and anxieties we assume when we feel our sense of control slipping away. What are you looking at and what is consuming your field of vision? Lastly, John mentions the pride of life. This is fairly self-evident, but these idols are connected to our thinking we are _____ -er than others and even God. Stronger. Smarter. Better Holier. One of the most common modern-day idols is our elevation of self and our own merits and abilities. If we are not careful, we’ll spend our short window on this earth trying to protect and promote a version of our lives that Jesus has already died for. These idols, the desires of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life, are not from the Father, but from the world. But the hope and truth of the gospel is that we do not have to live like we are of this world. We can stand assured on the words and prayers of Jesus, as we read in John 17:15-16, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  We don’t find our ultimate victory over idolatry by removing ourselves from all things that are of this world. The good things we love aren’t bad things, they just were never meant to be ultimate things. Rather, we are meant to find our ultimate victory through the protection of the Father and the provision of the Son, King Jesus. Read part two of our The Idols In Our Lives series, How to Dethrone Our Idols and Live Free.

Read part one of our The Idols In Our Lives series, What is Idolatry in Our Modern-Day Society? “Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior. ” Martin Luther We ended our first piece on this topic of idolatry by looking at a passage from 1 John 2:15-17.  Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[c]—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. We noted that John opens this text by giving us a short command that sums up the scope of idolatry: misguided worship and the elevation of our affections for things that aren’t of or from God. He tells us not to love the world or the things in the world. It’s okay to love things, it’s just not healthy or helpful for our spiritual walk with Jesus to place our affections in what can’t truly satisfy us. There are serious consequences of letting idolatry infiltrate our hearts and remain in our souls. That’s what John ends this text by reminding us. Our idols, the things we are tempted to find such significance and hope in, are fading away. And if our lives mirror what we worship, then a heart full of idols is in danger of fading away as well.  The Dangers of Idolatry and the Rewards of True Worship Idolatry, or the worship of idols, has become so familiar and entrenched in the background of our society that we rarely stop to consider the danger of this heart practice we have let occupy a central position in our lives. It’s as if we have brought a lion into our bedroom but insist on treating it like a kitten.  In Colossians 3:5-6, Paul writes: Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In chapter 44 of Isaiah, the prophet provides a fantastic examination of the folly of idolatry.  He concludes in verse 20 that for the man who worships idols… He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” What’s the danger of idolatry? Not only do we not give God the glory He rightfully deserves. But we also run the risk of deluding our hearts, being led astray by false promises and false hopes, and ultimately, failing to find deliverance in that which we trusted could save us.  When we think about idolatry through this lens and understand that our misdirected worship has devastating consequences, it can be difficult to imagine how we get pulled into this narrative time and time again. However, idolatry is steeped in deception and saturated with false promises. Commentator and author David Brooks highlights this idea well when he writes: “At first, idols give you everything and ask nothing. But at the end, idols ask everything and give you nothing.” Like Spurgeon said above, the earth and all its treasures, the riches, glories, or pleasures of this world are all fleeting. They might initially look golden and glitzy as an alluring light, but all are built upon an eventual emptiness. All are lacking the ability to truly satisfy a heart that longs for eternal joy.  Perhaps the most detrimental aspect of idolatry is this slow deterioration of fulfilling joy. When we anchor our affections in those things which were never meant to truly delight us, we exchange the eternal riches of God with a facsimile, a lie, a piece of fool’s gold. This is what Paul recognized as being true of the Romans when he wrote in chapter 1:21-23 “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” When this exchange is made, when idolatry becomes the leading practice of our hearts, our thoughts become futile and our hearts become darkened. We become unaware of the joy and light that abounds through Jesus, as the Apostle John tells us that “in him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4).  These dangers are real, but they don’t need to become a reality for you or for me. For those who have been saved and adopted into the family of God, who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit, these sons and daughters can do what Paul writes and “put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13).  If we do this, we will live. More than that, we will be positioned to offer God our very lives as living sacrifices (Romans 12), a spiritual worship that aligns with the invitation from Jesus in John 4 to the Samaritan woman at the well to “worship God in spirit and in truth.” You have a unique and specific invitation to worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But if you spend your limited time here on planet Earth crafting and calling out to your idols, you’ll run the risk of missing your opportunities to glorify what truly matters as your voice will get weaker, your eyes more clouded, your ears more dimmed, until one day, you become like what you worship. This isn’t a matter of preference or particulars. This is a battle for the very thriving of your faith and your followership of Jesus. Dethroning our Idols by Savoring the Savior God commanded Israel to have no other gods before Him and to make no images (both with physical materials and imitating things of earth, including ourselves) not to be tyrannical, but because He knows that He is the best thing we could ever pursue. He knows that in Him dwells all life, all joy, all satisfaction, all hope, all goodness. He wants us to experience that, but in order to do so, we must treasure Him above all other counterfeit gods that claim to be likewise fulfilling. Instead of forcing our obedience, in love, He provided a way of adoption to sonship and daughtership. Instead of neglecting our needs the first time we rebelled against Him, He gave up His greatest treasure. Himself. He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How marvelous. How wonderful. How convincing of His character and worthiness? By His Spirit and through His blood, we can dethrone our idols and shift our affections from the passions and desires of our former ways that only lead toward empty and abandoned hopes. We can move our loves towards the arms of the One who taught us the greatest truths about love, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. All that sounds nice in theory, but theory alone doesn’t dethrone idols from the center of our hearts. We need to couple our theology with tangible, practical steps that help us recenter our affections on our King. If you want to dethrone your idols, here are five steps toward finding new freedom: Confess and repent from lesser worship.Safeguard against slippery slopes.Prioritize a pure and personal relationship with Jesus.Pray short prayers consistently throughout your day.Implement a habit of reflection on and gratitude for God’s goodness. How can you move something off the throne of your heart if you aren’t willing to acknowledge and confess that there is an imposter currently seated where Christ should be ruling? So tell God that you know and are grieved by the idols you’ve let become too comfortable in your heart. Then once you confess and repent, think of practical safeguards that you can establish that will help you not fall back into those easy-to-desire traps. Maybe you set up an accountability partner. Maybe you remove a physical item from your room or house. Put up safeguards. With safeguards up, you can concentrate on cultivating a pure and personal relationship with Jesus. He wants to walk with us. Not ahead of us. Not behind us. With us. He wants to be right by our side in the fire and in the fight. But He also wants us to prioritize purity. He inhabits the praises of His people, but He doesn’t want to inhabit idolatrous praise. He desires pure and holy praise. Getting very practical, begin to pray short prayers consistently throughout your day. Many people think prayer has to happen only in the morning or the evening, or maybe around mealtime. Instead, shift into praying nonstop. It doesn’t have to be much—a few words, a sentence here or there. It’s more about alignment than about paragraphs of right-sounding words. Again, God wants to be with you and there are few better practices to safeguard against your idols than being with God. Lastly, if you truly want to dethrone your idols, you’re going to need to replace them with something greater. We mentally know that only God deserves to be on the throne of our hearts and is worthy of our total worship. But how do we convince our hearts of that truth? We reflect on and are grateful for His goodness. Idolatry has not disappeared from the human heart and the opportunity to misdirect our worship will always tempt the souls of mankind. But we have something more precious than all the idols of the world could ever supply. A real and tangible relationship with the God of all things, all times, and all glories. And when we strive, through His Spirit, to savor that relationship, our affections will surely follow.

If we are not careful, the more we use the word this way, the more likely we are to debase and profane, forget, or excuse someone else’s calling that we were created to do.  You see, worship is so much more than the fifteen or twenty minutes of music before the sermon on Sunday. It’s a lifestyle! Merriam-Webster defines lifestyle as “the typical way of life of an individual, group, or culture.” Whether we realize it or not, worship is our typical way of life because it is what we were created to do. Every one of us worships something or someone every moment of our lives. Because worship is our purpose, it’s not just a Christian purpose. It’s a human purpose. It’s in our wiring. In him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  Colossians 1:16 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight… to the praise of his glorious grace. Ephesians 1:4,6 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11 We were made to know God and love him in response. That is worship.  Louie Giglio says, “Worship is our response, both personally and corporately, to God—for who He is and what He has done, expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.” God reveals who He is—His love, grace, kindness, goodness, righteousness, holiness, justice, patience, and compassion and we respond. But we get to decide if our response is measured and calculated or abandoned and undignified. The measure of our response will grow or shrink directly to our view of God because worship is proportional.  A high view of God results in extravagant worship. But lose sight of His greatness and “goodness,” and we will spend our days asking the created to satiate what can only be satisfied by the Creator.  The good news for us is that worship begins with God. A response is a reply—to say or do something in return. It insinuates previous actions or revelations. In worship, God reveals, and we respond.    When Abraham encounters God, he is called to obedient sacrifice, an act of worship.  When Moses leads the people out of Egypt, it is so they can worship the Lord, and Miriam leads them in worship.  When the Moabites and Ammonites attack Judah, Jehoshaphat sends out a choir before the army, and they worship.  When Job loses everything, he falls to his knees in worship.  When Elijah calls down fire from heaven, it is an act of worship.  When David dances before the Lord, it is worship.  When Hannah hands her baby son to the Lord, she sings a worship song.  When Mary knows that she is carrying Jesus, she worships.  When the wise men greet the baby Jesus, they worship.  When Simeon sees the infant Jesus, he worships.  When the widow gives her mite, all she has, as an offering to the Lord, she worships.  When the sinful woman brings her most valuable possession and pours it out on the feet of Jesus in an expression of love, she worships. When the disciples realize that Jesus is Lord, they worship him. When Paul and Silas are imprisoned for casting an evil spirit out of a woman, they worship.   Each of these encounters with God happens when God shows up in the seemingly mundane routine of life. And only one takes place in a church service. Worship is woven into the hearts of God’s people. It cannot and should not be contained to a church building or a job title. It’s a lifestyle. But so often, we are missing God in the ordinary because we fill every moment with distraction and idolatry. God is revealing, but we are failing to respond. We have substituted an intimate relationship with Jesus for simply orbiting around the things of Jesus. We are spending our time binging the next best Netflix series or watching endless TikTok videos while the very words of God are at our fingertips. Worship is proportional to our view of God. So, if our everyday lives aren’t filled with adoration for the King of Kings and obedience to His commands, maybe we need to examine who we believe Jesus to be. Do we declare His glory on Sunday but deny His Lordship on Monday?  Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1 The Greek word for worship in this verse is latreia (lat-ri’-ah). It is the second most commonly used word to describe worship in the New Testament. And it means “service.” The extravagant, proportional worship we are discussing is not simply raising your hands at the pinnacle of your favorite worship song. It is a service. Paul is saying when we see what it cost Jesus to bring us from death to life, how could we do anything less than serve him for the rest of our lives with all of our lives?  And that’s why, lastly, true worship propels.  I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! Amos 5:21-24 Our songs mean nothing if we spend our lives preoccupied with ourselves and fail to see that God is about the world’s salvation. Worship is born out of our relationship with God. When we see Him, we will be changed. He will mold our hearts to His. As we empty ourselves, He will fill us up with His life. We will be transformed into His likeness. And we will be compelled and propelled to love and serve those He puts in our path daily. God’s heart is for His people. Jesus says in Matthew 22:37-39, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” In other words, this is how we practically live out our worship. In our offices, at our homes, taking our kids to school, at the grocery store, when we’re out to eat, hanging out with our friends—with every breath, we love God and love people.  Tim Hughes puts it this way, “God empowers and equips us to make a difference and in true worship we worry less about how we feel or whether we’re being blessed and instead prepare to be led away from ourselves to the place where we are desperate to see the transformation of society. And there, serving the poor and sharing our best with those clothed in pain and despair we discover that Jesus is already there.”