Raised Hands or Bent Knees?
Theme of the Week: Worship: On Whose Terms?
Mark Roberts
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Let us … please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire Hebrews 12:28-29.Bonus Reading:Exodus 3:1-6
Faithful Catholics who meet the Pope kneel to kiss his ring. But that's about as far as reverent submission goes in the Western world. Ironically, our media are filled with images of Muslims prostrating themselves at prayer, perfectly illustrating the sense of the word Islam, which means "submission [to Allah]."
The West's allergy to submission has influenced even the way Christians relate to God. Not long ago it was common for Protestant believers to kneel in prayer. Now it's the exception. In the past, worship services were designed, above all, to foster reverence before God. Worshipers wore their "Sunday best" to church and kept silence during services.
Traditional worship, to be sure, can easily become imbalanced and stray away from the posture of the heart to an emphasis on outward form. But the same is true of informal contemporary worship. With an emphasis on spontaneity, we can lose the sense that we are in the presence of the sovereign, awe-inspiring God of the universe. We need to rediscover the balance of both celebration and silence, both exuberant praise and reverent submission.
—Mark Roberts in No Holds Barred
My Response: My worship would be better balanced with increased emphasis on …
Thought to Apply: By making a lot of religious din [in church] we assure our faltering hearts that everything is well, and, conversely, we suspect silence and regard it as a proof that the meeting is "dead."—A.W. Tozer (Illinois pastor)
Adapted from No Holds Barred (WaterBrook, 2005) by permission.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity. 1 of 1
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Keep me, God, from a presumptuous stance in Your majestic presence, but grant me a humble confidence based on Your sacrificial love.
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