Worship & Love for Christ
by A. W. Tozer
Both the Old and the New Testament teach that the essence of true
worship is the love of God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Our Lord declared this to be the
sum of the Law and the Prophets. In worship, several elements may be
distinguished, among them love, admiration, wonder and adoration. Though they
may not be experienced in that order, a little thought will reveal those
elements as
being present wherever true worship is found. Now, love is both a principle and
an emotion; it is something both felt and willed. It is capable of almost
infinite
degrees. Love in the human heart may begin so modestly as to be hardly
perceptible and go on to become a raging torrent that sweeps its possessor
before
it in total helplessness. Something like this must have been the experience of
the
apostle Paul, for he felt it necessary to explain to his critics that his
apparent
madness was actually the love of God ravishing his willing heart.
Worship Is Impossible Without Loving God
It is quite impossible to worship God without
loving Him. Scripture and
reason agree to declare this. And God is never satisfied with anything less than
"all thy heart... all thy soul... all thy might." This may not at first be
possible, but
deeper experience with God will prepare us far it, and the inward operations of
the
Holy Spirit will enable us after a while to offer Him such a poured-out
fullness of
love. In the love which any intelligent creature feels for God there must
always be
a measure of mystery. It is even possible that it is almost wholly mystery, and
that
our attempt to find reasons is merely a rationalizing of a love already
mysteriously present in the heart as a result of some secret operation of the
Spirit
within us, working like a miner, toiling unseen in the depths of the earth. But
so
far as reasons can be given, they would seem to be two: gratitude and
excellence.
To love God because He has been good to us is one of the most reasonable
things possible. The love which arises from the consideration of His kindness to
us is valid and altogether acceptable to Him. It is nevertheless a lower degree
of
love, being less selfless than that love which springs from an appreciation of
what
God is in Himself apart from His gifts. Thus the simple love which arises from
gratitude, when expressed in any act or conscious utterance, is undoubtedly
worship. But the quality of our worship is stepped up as we move away from the
thought of what God has done for us and nearer the thought of the excellence of
H is holy nature. This leads us to admiration.
Worship and Admiration
The dictionary says that to admire is "to regard
with wondering esteem
accompanied by pleasure and delight; to look at or upon with an elevated feeling
of pleasure." According to this definition, God has few admirers among
Christians today. Many are they who are grateful for His goodness in providing
salvation. At Thanksgiving time, the churches ring with songs of gratitude that
"all
is safely gathered in." Testimony meetings are mostly devoted to recitations of
incidents where someone got into trouble and got out again in answer to prayer.
To decry this would be uncharitable and unscriptural, for there is much of the
same thing in the Book of Psalms. It is good and right to render unto God
thanksgiving for all His mercies to us. But God's admirers, where are they? The
simple truth is that worship is elementary until it begins to take on the
quality of
admiration. Just as long as the worshiper is engrossed with himself and his good
fortune, he is a babe. We begin to grow up when our worship passes from
thanksgiving to admiration. As our hearts rise to God in lofty esteem for that
which He is ("I AM THAT I AM"), we begin to share a little of the selfless
pleasure which is the portion of the blessed in heaven.
Worship and Wonder
The third stage of true worship is wonder. Here
the mind ceases to understand
and goes over to a kind of delightful astonishment. Carlyle said that worship is
"transcendent wonder," a degree of wonder without limit and beyond expression.
That kind of worship is found throughout the Bible (though it is only fair to
say
that the lesser degrees of worship are found there also). Abraham fell on his
face
in holy wonderment as God spoke to him. Moses hid his face before the presence
of God in the burning bush. Paul could hardly tell whether he was in or out of
the
body when he was allowed to see the unspeakable glories of the third heaven.
When John saw Jesus walking among His churches, he fell at His feet as dead.
We cite these as a few examples; the list is long in the Biblical record.
It may be said that such experiences as these are highly unusual and can be
no criterion for the plain Christian today. This is true, but only of the
external
circumstances; the spiritual content of the experiences is unchanging and is
found
alike wherever true believers are found. It is always true that an encounter
with
God brings wonderment and awe. The pages of Christian biography are sweet
with the testimonies of enraptured worshipers who met God in intimate experience
and could find no words to express all they felt and saw and heard. Christian
hymnody takes us where the efforts of common prose break down, and brings the
wings of poetic feeling to the aid of the wondering saint. Open an old hymnal
and
turn to the sections on worship and the divine perfections and you will see the
part
that wonder has played in worship through the centuries. But wonder is not yet
the
last nor highest element in worship. The soaring saint has one more mountain
peak to clear before he has reached the rarefied air of purest worship. He must
adore.
Worship and Adoration
Neither the word adoration nor any of its forms
is found in our familiar
King James Bible, but the idea is there in full bloom. The great Bible saints
were,
above all, enraptured lovers of God. The psalms celebrate the love which David
(and a few others) felt for the person of God. As suggested above, Paul admitted
that the love of God was in his breast a kind of madness: "For whether we be
beside ourselves, it is of God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.
For
the love of Christ constrains us." In Weymouth's translation the passage reads,
"For the love of Christ overmasters us." The idea appears to be that Paul's love
for Christ carried him beyond himself and made him do extravagant things which
to a mind untouched with the delights of such love might seem quite irrational.
Perhaps the most serious charge that can be
brought against modern
Christians is that we are not sufficiently in love with Christ. The Christ of
fundamentalism is strong but hardly beautiful. It is rarely that we find anyone
aglow with personal love for Christ. I trust it is not uncharitable to say that
in my
opinion a great deal of praise in conservative circles is perfunctory and
forced,
where it is not downright insincere. Many of our popular songs and choruses in
praise of Christ are hollow and unconvincing. Some are even shocking in their
amorous endearments, and strike a reverent soul as being a kind of flattery
offered to One with whom neither composer nor singer is acquainted. The whole
thing is in the mood of the love ditty, the only difference being the
substitution of
the name of Christ for that of the earthly lover. How different and how utterly
wonderful are the emotions aroused by a true and Spirit-incited love far Christ.
Such a love may rise to a degree of adoration almost beyond the power of the
heart to endure, yet at the same time it will be serious, elevated, chaste and
reverent.
Worship and the Fear of God
Christ can never be known without a sense of awe
and fear accompanying
the knowledge. He is the fairest among ten thousand, but He is also the Lord
high
and mighty. He is the friend of sinners, but He is also the terror of devils.
He is
meek and lowly in heart, but He is also Lord and Christ who will surely come to
be the judge of all men. No one who knows Him intimately can ever be flippant
in His presence. The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and
frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses, it sobers and
enraptures.
There can be nothing more terrible or more wonderful than to be stricken with
love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of
His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and
satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart. This love as a kind of moral
fragrance
is ever detected upon the garments of the saints. The writings of these
believers is so passionately sweet as to be unbearable, yet so respectful and
self-effacing as to excite pity for the man who thus kneels in adoring wonder,
caught between holy love and an equally holy fear. The list of fragrant saints
is
long. It includes men and women of every shade of theological thought within
the bounds of the orthodox Christian faith. It embraces persons of every social
level, every degree of education, every race and color. This radiant love for
Christ is to my mind the true test of catholicity, the one sure proof of
membership in the church universal.It remains only to be said that worship as
we have described it here is almost (though, thank God, not quite) a forgotten
art in our day. For whatever we can say of modern Bible-believing Christians,
it can hardly be denied that we are not remarkable for our spirit of worship.
The gospel as preached by good men in our times may save souls, but it does
not create worshipers.
Our meetings are characterized by cordiality,
humor, affability, zeal and
high animal spirits; but hardly anywhere do we find gatherings marked by the
overshadowing presence of God. We manage to get along on correct doctrine,
fast tunes, pleasing personalities and religious amusements. How few, how
pitifully few are the enraptured souls who languish for love of Christ.
Christianity has fallen into the hands of leaders who knew not Joseph. The
very memory of better days is slowly passing from us and a new type of
religious person is emerging. How is the gold tarnished and the silver become
lead! If Bible Christianity is to survive the present world upheaval, we shall
need to recapture the spirit of worship. We shall need to have a fresh
revelation
of the greatness of God and the beauty of Jesus. He alone can raise our cold
hearts to rapture and restore again the art of true worship.
A. W. Tozer
(1895-1963) was the editor (1950-1963) of the
Alliance Witness
magazine
and minister among Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches for many years.
His
writing has been used to stir and challenge Christians to greater commitment
throughout the
world. This newsletter is an edited and abridged version of his article called
"The Art of
Worship" , orginially published by Moody Monthly in 1952.
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"We do not love
Christ merely for
what He has done
for us, but
because of what
He is in Himself.
In Him are sheer
infinitudes of
perfect moral
excellence and
beauty. He is
indeed 騻he
Chiefest of Ten
Thousand', and it
is not long before
we find ourselves
saying with
Thomas, 餹y
Lord, and my
God.'
"
J. Sidlow Baxter
from
Going Deeper,
Zondervan, 1969
"I believe in
Christianity
as I believe
that the sun
has
risen - not
because I
see it; but
because by
it, I see
everything
else.
"
C. S. Lewis
(1909-1963)
Author and former Professor at Cambridge University
"There are many
who know God,
but never glorify
Him as God,
because they
never worship
Him with love.
They go to
church regularly,
and sing psalms
and hymns; but
their hearts have
never adored the
living God with
living love.
Without the fire
of love, no
incense will ever
rise from the
censer of
praise.
"
C. H. Spurgeon
(1834-1892)
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