We Worship

You're listening to the My Morning Devotional Podcast episode 1577. Today's Devo is called We Worship.

Hey there, we're the Alestis, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a five-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast.

Well, happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome back to the My Morning Devotional Podcast. I'm your host for the week, Gabby. And if you didn't listen to yesterday's episode, I did share some exciting news. Or if you follow me on Instagram, you can see that exciting news as well. Go ahead and check it out. But I wanted to jump into our teaching today and our devo because the theme of this week, or I'd say the focus of this week, is why do we go to church? Why do we as believers attend church, whether it's Sundays or maybe you go Saturday nights, why do we do that? I think it's good for us to remind ourselves because there, I think there's two types of people. There are first the people that are committed to church. You go every single Sunday, you serve, you're fully a part of the church, but you lose the steam or the passion and the awareness of why you're there. And if you lose that, then you might fall off or you might just forget to how to how to cherish those moments. You need to know the why behind you serving and you showing up at 8 a.m. and you being there and you sitting in service, we need to know the why. But the other person could be someone that maybe was hurt by the church, or you went for years and you served and you were committed and something happened. Something happened with the pastor, something happened with the leader, something happened with the team that you served on, and it just didn't work out for you. And you've now claimed yourself as a Christian that doesn't go to church. And we can start to uh convince ourselves that I can know God and not go to church. And that is true. Yes, you can be in relationship with God and not go to church, but here's the thing about the Lord God doesn't only want us to be in relationship with Him, He wants us to be in relationship with each other. And so our focus this week is why do we go to church? The second uh reason yesterday was because we belong, but today I want to talk about that we worship together at church. Psalm 956 says this Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. Now I want to ask you this question. If let's say you were to compliment your spouse privately and say, honey, I just love the fact that you woke up on a Saturday morning and you dedicated our entire Saturday to fixing the lawn. Thank you so much, honey, for fixing the lawn. Now that'll make him feel pretty special, right? You just uh showered him with praise and with compliments, and you just gave him all of this love in the moment, but it was just between the two of you. Now he loves that. But then if you were to go on Monday where you're hanging out with your friends and everybody's there together, it's a bunch of couples, and you were to say to everybody, hey guys, I want you all to know what my husband did this weekend. On a Saturday morning, he woke up and instead of resting, instead of playing golf, instead of watching TV, he got out and he fixed our lawn. And I just want everybody to know I really love and cherish my husband. That would make your husband feel like a million bucks. That would make me feel like a million bucks. Why? Because you did it in private, but then you also took it a step further and you did it in public. And I feel like that's the same thing when we worship the Lord in public. I think it's important and we have to worship God in private because sometimes as believers, we can actually get more comfortable worshiping God in front of people, but we don't have a personal relationship where we worship with Him in behind closed doors, in our rooms, or in our car, right? You've got to make sure you're doing it personally. But we have to take it a step further and realize the power of worshiping God in a great cloud of witnesses, in a great room where there are hundreds of people around you. It could be 20 people, 40 people, a hundred, a thousand. There is power when us as believers come together in the same room under the same roof, singing the same exact song in unison. That is powerful. It's actually one of the moments that we are like the angels that sing unto God and lift up constant praise unto him. We are a holy choir of angels singing to the Lord when we lift up his name and we're singing it together and we're making it all about him. You see, one of the reasons we go to church is to worship the Lord together. It's to lift up a sound, it's to lift up a shout, it's to lift up our hands and to give him the praise, to give him the glory and the worship that he deserves. Worship's not about us. Worship is not about the song that we love, the song that we want to sing, or the song that we might know the lyrics to. Churches today, we have made it so easy for people to come in and worship. We have made it like consumer, what's that called? Is it consumer friendly? We have made it consumer friendly for people to come into church. You've got lyrics on the screen, you've got everything that you need to do. A worship leader that'll tell you, sing, come on, sing now. We got everything we need. The one thing we can't do is make worship so much about us that when we're singing, it's under us. When we're when we're shouting, it's under us. No, worship is a reminder of who it's about when we walk in the room. That's why I love when we do praise and worship first. When you start worship first, your service with worship, it is a reminder for everybody coming into the room as you walk into this room, lift up your eyes, lift up your hands and your voices, and sing unto the Lord. Because if we're not careful, especially when we attend church so often, or maybe you've been hurt by church and you start going back, if we're not careful, we'll make it about us. Does this church meet my needs? When worship brings us back into alignment with God, I want to meet your needs. So that's why we go to church. It's one of the reasons why we go to the church, is because we start every Sunday, Saturday night, whatever day it is, by worshiping the Lord, placing God on the throne. And the way that we do that is through worship. So I'm praying for you today. I challenge you today. Maybe you don't see it the way that I've talked about it today. Well, I pray that you would lean into it and you would ask the Lord, God, show me, show me this revelation. God, I might have lost the purpose behind worship on Sundays or the purpose behind going to church. But Lord, I want to know. Why? Because I'm a part of your family and I want to worship you with my family. Come on, let's pray. Father, you alone are worthy. You alone are to be praised. And I just pray that you would help us, Lord, help all of us come to church every Sunday, ready with a heart that is ready to worship you, to honor you, and celebrate who you are. We thank you for it all in Jesus' name. Amen.

So there you have it, your five minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.