Worship
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Introduction What is true worship? Soft slow music while I focus on God with my eyes closed, hands raised, praising Him, following the words of the song. This is what most people think when they are asked about hat worship is. I was brought up in a Church that describes worship as prayers and singing slow songs. The faster songs are known as “praise” and this is what we know as Praise and Worship. But is this what is really meant in the Scripture when we read worship in the Hebrew mindset?
Worship is at the very heart of Greek culture. Many great colosseums were built to accommodate the throngs of worshippers gathered to idolize and revere the gods. These gatherings were thought to please the gods and cause them to cast favour upon the people. Different gods were worshipped for different reasons in that each god was hovering over a different aspect of the world. Songs were sung, instruments were played, and nude dancing was common. Singing songs, playing, and dancing to the gods was worshipping, and this worship is what unified the people. Homosexual acts were quite common in that the body is irrelevant to the gods. It was the state of mind that the gods were interested in. The Stoics however, would have nothing to do with this kind of activity. Worship to them was equally a state of mind, however, a proper state of mind does not succumb to the writhing pleasures of the body. The Greek concept of worship, (proskuneo), was seen as a specific act of reverence or homage. Modern worship is also seen from the Greek point of view. We worship on Sunday morning. Praise and worship teams are popular today, as those who lead in Sunday morning worship time. Praise is seen as upbeat with a faster tempo and worship is when the tempo is slowed down and more serious adoration is displayed. When the weekly, mundane, cares of the world go through their cycle, then Praise and Worship begins again with the next Sunday morning. There are also special occasions for Praise and Worship as well, that generally take place on anniversaries or semiannual events. To the western mind, that is us, worshipping is an event and not part of the daily lifestyle. When the event was over both the worshipers and the worshipped were pleased and content and they go away, back to their normal lives, doing what pleases them. We have this mindset and understanding of worshipping YHVH as well. We too worship YHVH with a Greek mindset.
1
orship is also at the heart of the observant Jew. The difference is how worship is defined and acted upon. The Tehillim (Psalms) are full of the worship and adoration of YHVH. All the writers of this book are singing, playing various instruments, clapping, shouting, and dancing unto YHVH. But there are several fundamental differences between the worship of the nations and scriptural worship. The first difference is in the actual meaning of the word worship. The Greek word used to translate worship has defined out some of the crucial focus of the Hebrew word. The Greek tends to separate worship from service, which is the background in Hebrew thought, to understanding worship. In the Hebrew culture the word avodah is understood as service, worship, or servitude. The Temple service, before Yeshua, was called The “Avodah” and a false or foreign worship is known as “avodah zerah”. “Avodah” comes from he root word “Avad” that means; servant, to work, to create, to make and worshipers. A servant of YHVH was a worshipper of YHVH, and worship was a continuous act. It was not limited to set times, even though worship was part of the set times (feasts, Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, etc.). Worship was intimately tied to work or service. Service to Elohim was not seen as secular and worship as religious or spiritual, but rather they were the same act. Why is this? Because everything is seen as theological to the Jew. When a man goes to his job, he is going to worship and serve YHVH. He is worshipping YHVH when he tends to his wife's needs. HE does not separate out ordinary daily activities from his 'religious' duties, for they are one and the same. So, whatever he does he approaches it with the motivation, kavanah, that this is his worship and service to YHVH. All of life is a unity, just as he sees himself. In Hebrew thought, all occupations are holy and sacred, and they are to be observed as such. One might ask, "So then is a bartender a holy and sacred occupation?" The answer is no. Well I thought you just said that all occupations are holy! That's right! But to the observant Jew, a bartender is not an occupation. hen everything you set out to do is understood to be worshipping YHVH your perspective changes dramatically. It would be very foreign to the scriptural mind to 'worship' YHVH for one to two hours a week, and then go back to the secular life for one week and repeat the process over again. I have read and come in contact with many observant Jews who are aghast when observing Christian worship. Many would say that our God is a part time God. They would observe that what goes on inside the walls is not practiced outside the walls and vice versa. For example, most westerners have no problem with jumping up and down and shouting at a sporting event, but would not dare jump up and down or shout in their assembly. I would think that YHVH has done more for them than the Broncos have. Many would also have no problem in kneeling and praying inside the walls of the assembly, but would not be caught dead doing that at work or at play somewhere else.
2
ost of us come from the Western world, from a Western culture and have learned to think with a western mindset. We need to understand the Hebrew culture and get a Hebrew mindset, to worship YHVH the way He wants to be worshipped. Most people today worship YHVH the way they prefer and please Him with the things they like. Let me use an example to illustrate this point. It is your dad’s birthday and you really want to surprise him with a special gift because you love him very much. You go out to the shops and find the coolest baggy pants and T-Shirt with a trendy slogan on the front. This is so cool and you love it and decided to give this to your dad as a present. The morning of his birthday you got up early and presented him with a smile and the gift. His face lit up when he saw you and he was very pleased to see you and opened the gift wrapping. His face fell and he forged a smile trying to hide his disappointment. You saw his face and cannot understand why he don’t like his present. You love him so much and bought him the best present you could find, but the reality is; YOU BOUGHT HIM A PRESENT YOU LIKE AND DO NOT KNOW HIM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HE WANTS. What you did was very noble, but it was not pleasing your father. In the same way we give gifts of worship to our Father and we do not know Him well enough to know what He wants and how He wants to be worshipped. To rectify this, we have to take a step back and learn what our Father likes and what He dislikes and then present Him with Gifts that are well pleasing in His sight, because we love Him.
We worship Him in truth if we have the truth of Who He is and what He said and what He likes and what He despises. At this point in time, millions of people worship YHVH the same way they worship sport, rock stars and celebrities. These are forms of Greek mindset worship and the Father do not want to be treated like a Greek god and honoured in the same way. We honour Him with a mixture of pagan symbols and traditions and expect him to appreciate our worship. We are self cantered and care more about what other people say than worry about what our Father thinks. We decorate trees and have a man in red suit riding a sled through the sky, when we celebrate our Messiah’s birth.
How are we suppose to worship our Father then? What does He like? Worship is the highest form of expressing your love, respect, adoration, thankfulness, reverence and awe towards YHVH. He gave us His Word and in His Word we find His character and Who He is and what He expect from us. We worship Him when we find out what He said and do what He instructed us to do.
3
How do I show my love towards Him? !" % % &'
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There is no other way, you as a parent will know that this is true. If your child loves you, he/she will do what you say without you forcing them to do it. When a child is little, they are in their selfish stage of life and need encouragement and discipline to obey you. When they grow older and became more mature, they tend to know what you want and do it because they want to please you and because they love you. It is the same way as with our heavenly Father; when you grow into spiritual maturity, you will WANT TO do the things He likes and WANT TO please Him out of love for Him. People who try to see what they can get out of their relationship with YHVH is still immature and needs to grow up spiritually.
e gave us His Word and His Word came to earth and dwelled among us. You will know what He likes if you study His word and read what Y’shua liked and how He reacted to different people doing different things. Within His Word you will find numerous examples of what YHVH likes and what He hates, the decision is yours, you have to search the Scripture to find out. We will now look at a few things YHVH hates or despises. Idol worship: I know for a fact that He hates Idol worship and the mixing in of pagan traditions into His Holy things like the Sabbath and the Festivals. ( " * + ,
) - ** YHVH likes His day of rest but man did not like it because His day of rest interfere with the rest of the world’s social calendar. The majority of sporting events are on the Sabbath and most people plan their lives around Rugby games, Footy games, or what ever other sport there is, and they pay honour and respect to sport, rather than acknowledging YHVH as the Creator and resting with Him on His day of rest. We have made idols of sport and sport heroes and worship then the same way Greek gods were worshipped.
eligion: YHVH hates religion. Now most people connect the word “religion” to following the Old Testament’s Commandments and they say if you do this, you are legalistic. You have to get the correct definition for religion is everything that pertains to worshipping YHVH that comes from man that is contrary to His Word. The people famous for enforcing religion were the Pharisees. They corrupted the Word of YHVH and added their own commandments to “fence” YHVH’s Commandments and man followed them instead of YHVH. These man made commandments are documented today and is better known as the Talmud. Religion is not only found among the Jews, it is found within Catholicism and Christianity. Christians read more religious books and opinions of man that they read the Scripture. Their “Talmud” is found in Christian bookshops. Catholicism is totally in another class; they perfected man made traditions and their religion is mostly based on paganism and man made traditions. All three of these are abominations in the eyes of YHVH and man made traditions and instructions needs to be taken out of our worship to YHVH.
4
aterial things – worldly desires: We live in a Capitalistic Western society and we are bombarded with advertisements to uplift your lifestyle and attain all these wonderful things. YHVH never made us to see how much stuff we can gather in a lifetime, He made us to worship Him, not things. $
" %
$
"
* .
# +
#
You cannot say that you worship YHVH when your main goal in life is to have the best of everything. Then you are a liar and you say you worship YHVH but you worship mammon or material things. If you truly worship YHVH you will put Him first and peruse Him and His ways with passion, and not worldly things like the rest of the ungodly around us. $
"
/ ) )
*
) 0
A Kingdom has a King and a King has Rules. If you live in His Kingdom, or any kingdom for that matter, you have to obey that kingdom’s rules and live by those standards. If you do not honour the rules of the Kingdom, you do not honour the King Who made them. usts of the flesh: Lusts of the flesh overlaps with worldly desires but we can tilt the scales to focus more on fleshly desires rather the material desires as discussed previously. Lusts of the flesh are described at the hand of things that are pleasurable to the flesh, namely; sex, eating, drinking, parties and entertainment. In a nutshell, it relates to living sexually moral, projecting a standard of living that is appropriate and according to the standards YHVH gave us in His Word. If you say that you worship YHVH and you keep on attending your drunk parties and wild dancing on ungodly and profane music, that is proving the contrary and you are cancelling out ther evidence that you really follow and worship YHVH. If you sleep around with every willing female and you indulge yourself in x rated movies and pornography and you say you worship YHVH, you are definitely not worshipping Him while you do things that He despises. The same goes for movies where they blaspheme YHVH and promote the love of money sex and violence.
hile you do any of these things mentioned here, you are not worshipping YHVH while you do it because worship is not an isolated event you do once a week or once a day, it is a lifestyle. Every time you sin you are not worshipping YHVH. There are times of expressing your gratitude towards YHVH in song or through prayer, but that is only a small portion of your worship towards YHVH, your lifestyle reflects the totality of your worship and the things you do that pleases Him. These things will be as a sweet smell unto Him and He will accept it as true worship.
5
Worship is at the very heart of Greek culture. Many great colosseums were built to accommodate the throngs of worshippers gathered to idolize and revere the gods. These gatherings were thought to please the gods and cause them to cast favour upon the people. Different gods were worshipped for different reasons in that each god was hovering over a different aspect of the world. Songs were sung, instruments were played, and nude dancing was common. Singing songs, playing, and dancing to the gods was worshipping, and this worship is what unified the people. Homosexual acts were quite common in that the body is irrelevant to the gods. It was the state of mind that the gods were interested in. The Stoics however, would have nothing to do with this kind of activity. Worship to them was equally a state of mind, however, a proper state of mind does not succumb to the writhing pleasures of the body. The Greek concept of worship, (proskuneo), was seen as a specific act of reverence or homage. Modern worship is also seen from the Greek point of view. We worship on Sunday morning. Praise and worship teams are popular today, as those who lead in Sunday morning worship time. Praise is seen as upbeat with a faster tempo and worship is when the tempo is slowed down and more serious adoration is displayed. When the weekly, mundane, cares of the world go through their cycle, then Praise and Worship begins again with the next Sunday morning. There are also special occasions for Praise and Worship as well, that generally take place on anniversaries or semiannual events. To the western mind, that is us, worshipping is an event and not part of the daily lifestyle. When the event was over both the worshipers and the worshipped were pleased and content and they go away, back to their normal lives, doing what pleases them. We have this mindset and understanding of worshipping YHVH as well. We too worship YHVH with a Greek mindset.
1
orship is also at the heart of the observant Jew. The difference is how worship is defined and acted upon. The Tehillim (Psalms) are full of the worship and adoration of YHVH. All the writers of this book are singing, playing various instruments, clapping, shouting, and dancing unto YHVH. But there are several fundamental differences between the worship of the nations and scriptural worship. The first difference is in the actual meaning of the word worship. The Greek word used to translate worship has defined out some of the crucial focus of the Hebrew word. The Greek tends to separate worship from service, which is the background in Hebrew thought, to understanding worship. In the Hebrew culture the word avodah is understood as service, worship, or servitude. The Temple service, before Yeshua, was called The “Avodah” and a false or foreign worship is known as “avodah zerah”. “Avodah” comes from he root word “Avad” that means; servant, to work, to create, to make and worshipers. A servant of YHVH was a worshipper of YHVH, and worship was a continuous act. It was not limited to set times, even though worship was part of the set times (feasts, Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, etc.). Worship was intimately tied to work or service. Service to Elohim was not seen as secular and worship as religious or spiritual, but rather they were the same act. Why is this? Because everything is seen as theological to the Jew. When a man goes to his job, he is going to worship and serve YHVH. He is worshipping YHVH when he tends to his wife's needs. HE does not separate out ordinary daily activities from his 'religious' duties, for they are one and the same. So, whatever he does he approaches it with the motivation, kavanah, that this is his worship and service to YHVH. All of life is a unity, just as he sees himself. In Hebrew thought, all occupations are holy and sacred, and they are to be observed as such. One might ask, "So then is a bartender a holy and sacred occupation?" The answer is no. Well I thought you just said that all occupations are holy! That's right! But to the observant Jew, a bartender is not an occupation. hen everything you set out to do is understood to be worshipping YHVH your perspective changes dramatically. It would be very foreign to the scriptural mind to 'worship' YHVH for one to two hours a week, and then go back to the secular life for one week and repeat the process over again. I have read and come in contact with many observant Jews who are aghast when observing Christian worship. Many would say that our God is a part time God. They would observe that what goes on inside the walls is not practiced outside the walls and vice versa. For example, most westerners have no problem with jumping up and down and shouting at a sporting event, but would not dare jump up and down or shout in their assembly. I would think that YHVH has done more for them than the Broncos have. Many would also have no problem in kneeling and praying inside the walls of the assembly, but would not be caught dead doing that at work or at play somewhere else.
2
ost of us come from the Western world, from a Western culture and have learned to think with a western mindset. We need to understand the Hebrew culture and get a Hebrew mindset, to worship YHVH the way He wants to be worshipped. Most people today worship YHVH the way they prefer and please Him with the things they like. Let me use an example to illustrate this point. It is your dad’s birthday and you really want to surprise him with a special gift because you love him very much. You go out to the shops and find the coolest baggy pants and T-Shirt with a trendy slogan on the front. This is so cool and you love it and decided to give this to your dad as a present. The morning of his birthday you got up early and presented him with a smile and the gift. His face lit up when he saw you and he was very pleased to see you and opened the gift wrapping. His face fell and he forged a smile trying to hide his disappointment. You saw his face and cannot understand why he don’t like his present. You love him so much and bought him the best present you could find, but the reality is; YOU BOUGHT HIM A PRESENT YOU LIKE AND DO NOT KNOW HIM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HE WANTS. What you did was very noble, but it was not pleasing your father. In the same way we give gifts of worship to our Father and we do not know Him well enough to know what He wants and how He wants to be worshipped. To rectify this, we have to take a step back and learn what our Father likes and what He dislikes and then present Him with Gifts that are well pleasing in His sight, because we love Him.
We worship Him in truth if we have the truth of Who He is and what He said and what He likes and what He despises. At this point in time, millions of people worship YHVH the same way they worship sport, rock stars and celebrities. These are forms of Greek mindset worship and the Father do not want to be treated like a Greek god and honoured in the same way. We honour Him with a mixture of pagan symbols and traditions and expect him to appreciate our worship. We are self cantered and care more about what other people say than worry about what our Father thinks. We decorate trees and have a man in red suit riding a sled through the sky, when we celebrate our Messiah’s birth.
How are we suppose to worship our Father then? What does He like? Worship is the highest form of expressing your love, respect, adoration, thankfulness, reverence and awe towards YHVH. He gave us His Word and in His Word we find His character and Who He is and what He expect from us. We worship Him when we find out what He said and do what He instructed us to do.
3
How do I show my love towards Him? !" % % &'
# $ # $
$
$
There is no other way, you as a parent will know that this is true. If your child loves you, he/she will do what you say without you forcing them to do it. When a child is little, they are in their selfish stage of life and need encouragement and discipline to obey you. When they grow older and became more mature, they tend to know what you want and do it because they want to please you and because they love you. It is the same way as with our heavenly Father; when you grow into spiritual maturity, you will WANT TO do the things He likes and WANT TO please Him out of love for Him. People who try to see what they can get out of their relationship with YHVH is still immature and needs to grow up spiritually.
e gave us His Word and His Word came to earth and dwelled among us. You will know what He likes if you study His word and read what Y’shua liked and how He reacted to different people doing different things. Within His Word you will find numerous examples of what YHVH likes and what He hates, the decision is yours, you have to search the Scripture to find out. We will now look at a few things YHVH hates or despises. Idol worship: I know for a fact that He hates Idol worship and the mixing in of pagan traditions into His Holy things like the Sabbath and the Festivals. ( " * + ,
) - ** YHVH likes His day of rest but man did not like it because His day of rest interfere with the rest of the world’s social calendar. The majority of sporting events are on the Sabbath and most people plan their lives around Rugby games, Footy games, or what ever other sport there is, and they pay honour and respect to sport, rather than acknowledging YHVH as the Creator and resting with Him on His day of rest. We have made idols of sport and sport heroes and worship then the same way Greek gods were worshipped.
eligion: YHVH hates religion. Now most people connect the word “religion” to following the Old Testament’s Commandments and they say if you do this, you are legalistic. You have to get the correct definition for religion is everything that pertains to worshipping YHVH that comes from man that is contrary to His Word. The people famous for enforcing religion were the Pharisees. They corrupted the Word of YHVH and added their own commandments to “fence” YHVH’s Commandments and man followed them instead of YHVH. These man made commandments are documented today and is better known as the Talmud. Religion is not only found among the Jews, it is found within Catholicism and Christianity. Christians read more religious books and opinions of man that they read the Scripture. Their “Talmud” is found in Christian bookshops. Catholicism is totally in another class; they perfected man made traditions and their religion is mostly based on paganism and man made traditions. All three of these are abominations in the eyes of YHVH and man made traditions and instructions needs to be taken out of our worship to YHVH.
4
aterial things – worldly desires: We live in a Capitalistic Western society and we are bombarded with advertisements to uplift your lifestyle and attain all these wonderful things. YHVH never made us to see how much stuff we can gather in a lifetime, He made us to worship Him, not things. $
" %
$
"
* .
# +
#
You cannot say that you worship YHVH when your main goal in life is to have the best of everything. Then you are a liar and you say you worship YHVH but you worship mammon or material things. If you truly worship YHVH you will put Him first and peruse Him and His ways with passion, and not worldly things like the rest of the ungodly around us. $
"
/ ) )
*
) 0
A Kingdom has a King and a King has Rules. If you live in His Kingdom, or any kingdom for that matter, you have to obey that kingdom’s rules and live by those standards. If you do not honour the rules of the Kingdom, you do not honour the King Who made them. usts of the flesh: Lusts of the flesh overlaps with worldly desires but we can tilt the scales to focus more on fleshly desires rather the material desires as discussed previously. Lusts of the flesh are described at the hand of things that are pleasurable to the flesh, namely; sex, eating, drinking, parties and entertainment. In a nutshell, it relates to living sexually moral, projecting a standard of living that is appropriate and according to the standards YHVH gave us in His Word. If you say that you worship YHVH and you keep on attending your drunk parties and wild dancing on ungodly and profane music, that is proving the contrary and you are cancelling out ther evidence that you really follow and worship YHVH. If you sleep around with every willing female and you indulge yourself in x rated movies and pornography and you say you worship YHVH, you are definitely not worshipping Him while you do things that He despises. The same goes for movies where they blaspheme YHVH and promote the love of money sex and violence.
hile you do any of these things mentioned here, you are not worshipping YHVH while you do it because worship is not an isolated event you do once a week or once a day, it is a lifestyle. Every time you sin you are not worshipping YHVH. There are times of expressing your gratitude towards YHVH in song or through prayer, but that is only a small portion of your worship towards YHVH, your lifestyle reflects the totality of your worship and the things you do that pleases Him. These things will be as a sweet smell unto Him and He will accept it as true worship.
5
