“But an hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.” John 4:23 NAS
Do you ever feel like you have to be in a certain place or be in a certain position to pray to and worship God? We all have done it, “I need to be in a church to truly worship God or I need to be alone to pray to God.” Jesus died on the cross so that we don’t have to have all of the rules, regulations and laws dictating to us how pray and interact with God.
God wants us to talk to Him all the time and He wants to talk to us all the time. He wants us to be involved with Him and let Him be involved in our lives. We can pray anywhere and at anytime. Prayer is simply a conversation with God.
We need to be reverent and respectful, but we don’t need to be afraid of God. We don’t have to be in a certain room or have our eyes closed to talk with God. We need to simply talk to Him, He desires it and we should desire it as well.
Prayer is a kind of worship, just as is singing, giving of your time and resources and being grateful. Just like prayer, we don’t need to be in a certain place or position to sing to God. How we sing to God is not as important as what we are feeling in our heart and mind while we are singing to God. Are we there with God in those moments or are we singing because we know the words and are actually thinking about the next thing we need to do today?
Giving of our time and resources can be worship of God, in that we are taking care of others by either physically doing things for them or by having the resources available to have things done for them. I am not someone who will tell others what they need to give either out of their time or their resources, that is between each one of us and God, but I will encourage everyone to give whatever you are giving with a grateful heart and not out of obligation.
Being grateful is very important, because it drives our motivation for why we are doing things in the first place. Is it out of obligation that we are at church, or listening to a certain radio station, or giving of our time to lead a group at church? Do we think that we have to do these things to be “Christians”. The answer is no, it is not the requirement to be a “Christian”. What is the requirement is to have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and then try your best to grow and mature in a relationship with Him daily.
Worship is a wonderful way that we are able to express to God how much we love Him, how much we are thankful for all that He has done for us and how much we are in awe that the Creator of the world wants to be involved in each one of our lives. Take today and look at your motivation behind how you pray and worship and see what is driving it. If it needs changed, please change it, but if it doesn’t, then keep on praying to God and worshipping Him with all your heart, soul and mind.