Present Yourself Back to God

[June 20, 2011]   -- Ken Read in his book Created to Worship tells us: “Another aspect of worship is to actively respond to His nature and His deeds, by presenting ourselves back to God. Romans 12 urges us, after taking a good, long look at the mercies of God and the forgiveness that He has given us, to turn the gift around and give ourselves back to Him as living sacrifices, which is our spiritual act of worship.
Often times we get the drama of worship backwards.

Kierkegaard was the first to explain it: We sometimes mistakenly think of the preacher, worship leaders, or other up-front people as being the performers, the congregation as the audience, and God as sort of a prompter in the wings helping ensure that the “show” goes well. But the model is wrong, in the drama of worship, God Himself is the audience, the congregation is the performer for Him. The up-front people (including the worship leader) are merely the prompters, providing material so that the congregation can offer up a better performance for that audience of One.
Worship, of course, is far more than just a Sunday morning experience.

Many people come to worship on Sunday morning and they think they’ve given God their hour or two per week. But if we are called to be a living sacrifice, then that means God wants control of every detail of our lives, not just one. Every detail? “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). When we review God’s mercies, our response is to give ourselves as a sacrifice in return.”

[text from file received by Tim Searby, Worship Minister, Lincoln Christian Church]