One of the most popular verses when talking about worship is Romans 12 where it says,

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Now, nowhere in this verse does it say to offer our good days, or offer the times when we feel like it as a sacrifice and that that would be our form of worship. It says to offer our bodies as a sacrifice, and then that would be our form of worship. Body can be interpreted as merely the physical body that each of us have, but it can also be interpreted as the whole, our lives.

I think that often we tend to justify not doing something for God by saying, “I don’t feel like it.” (I know I’m guilty of this). We think that because there’s no “mountain top” feeling going into something, that we don’t necessarily need to do it. But if we think that this is okay, why did Paul write to offer our bodies as a sacrifice and that that would be our form of worship?

Would true worship be showing up when the feeling isn’t necessarily there? Would it be participating in what God is doing out of true love, discipline, and obedience rather than out of a feeling or emotion? I’ve heard it said, and I agree, that love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice (or something to that effect). And I think that we often forget that. A relationship with Christ is like any other relationship, if you try to operate off of feelings and emotions, the relationship will be short lived. But just as Christ chose and is constantly choosing to love us despite all of the junk in our lives, so should we choose to love and be obedient to Christ, operating not on feeling or emotion, but out of love, faith, and obedience.

I’m writing this post out of some experiences of mine that have happened as of late where I flat out didn’t want to do something that God was calling me to do. I wanted to leave or skip what I was responsible for and just move on to the next part of the night. I’ve heard several talks, and chances are if anyone has ever been on a retreat you’ve heard it too, about showing up and continuing this walk with Christ after the feeling from the retreat/concert/sermon/worship set is gone. I believe the same principal applies when going into something. I think God purposely chooses to not fill us with that emotion/anticipation of a moment to teach us to trust that He is still God. I think he does this to show that He is the God of everyday, not just the God of the big extravagant church events. This is a lesson that I’ve been learning a lot over the last two months and it’s been hard for me. I’ve had discussions with a couple of people where I just say that I don’t want to do this. But after we’ve prayed and brought this to God, God provided and told me to continue on.

This post feels kind of scattered and not well written, but I can live with that. Basically, worshiping God when the mountaintop feeling isn’t there is just as important, if not, more important, as worshiping God in those mountaintop experiences like retreats and worship events.

Love isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.

Dustin

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under God, The Church, Worship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.