Reflections on Worship
(I have to write "journal reflections" for a course I am taking this semester online, and this week we were asked to read and reflect upon Leviticus. I thought quite a lot about the sacrifices mentioned throughout the beginning of this book, and then went on a bit of a rampage with my journal for the week.)
In Leviticus, the Israelites are given instruction for the proper worship of a Holy God in the form of five different offerings. But how did the Lord, in this context, define worship? How did the Israelites define worship? And how do we today define worship?
Oftentimes, worship today is typically associated with singing, possible dancing, and raised hands in the context of a church service. Worship is the raising of our voices to the glorification of the Lord, or at least that is what it has only become. But the Israelites didn’t have to sing for their offerings. They worshiped with their actions; literally with all they had to offer. Now, the Israelites lived before the time of the perfect sacrifice that came as Jesus Christ, and so still had to give the grain, burnt, fellowship, sin, or guilt offering to the Lord for their sins. They had to sacrifice their livelihood to pay for their sins. Today, we Christians have received the benefits of the saving power of Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice, and need only to believe. Romans 12:1 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.” For the Israelites, proper worship was to give the offerings, but for us today, proper worship is to live our lives as offering to the Lord. We are living sacrifices.
There is a problem, however, with being a living sacrifice. Daily, we will get on the altar, but daily we will get off. We do not understand the gift it is to continue to live as an offering when we deserve death, and we forget to live as those properly worshiping the Lord. We need to live our lives constantly on the altar, giving our lives over as sacrifices at all times. This is our proper act of spiritual worship.
Worship can certainly still be associated with singing and dancing and raised hands, because honestly, that is exactly what it is. But we need to be careful that the second the music stops, we have not stepped down off that altar and again become our own people no longer living for Christ in worship. Worship is a non-stop experience. It should manifest itself in all that we say and do. We ought to be so filled with God and the act of worshiping Him that we are overflowing onto others. Our passion should be contagious. Living as a sacrifice is, arguably, much harder than just offering up an animal, but the reality is that it is all about where your heart lies. If it lies in the music, great, but don’t stop worshiping when the music stops. If it lies in repentance through the symbol of a physical animal being offered up, great, but don’t let it stop once the animal has been given up. However worshiping the Lord manifests itself in our lives, we must never let it stop. Because as we see in Leviticus, the moment the Israelites stopped obeying God, He turned away from their well-being.