February 5, 2018

Worship the Lord

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name.  Bring an offering and come before Him; worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness."  1 Chron. 16:29

I readily admit to being a person who loves to do word studies and find the patterns and principles in the Bible that can be helpful in digging deeper to unearth the rich treasures of Scripture.  This verse is such an example.

There are four key actions that the worshiper:  ascribe; bring; come; and worship.  Ascribe means to give - so this first action we engage in is giving.  It's rather interesting - we give first.  We to the Lord the glory that is due to Him, His name, His nature, and  His character.  Who has the Lord been for you recently?  If He has been your provider, you can give Him glory due His name as Jehovah-Jireh.

The second action we engage in is bringing.  Specifically, we bring an offering.  We bring to the Lord physical sacrifices, we bring spiritual sacrifices.  David writes about these kind of sacrifices as including praise, thanksgiving, and a pure heart.  We bring, which is the Hebrew word "nasa" something to give to the Lord.  We bring ourselves and the church brings itself to the Lord.

Third, we come before the Lord.  This is very active, as evidenced by the Hebrew word for come, which is "bow."  It means: to enter, to come, to come, to lead in, to bring in, to be introduced.  If we believe that worship is already happening in heaven, then we come and enter in.  We are proactive about leading, and being introduced (again) to the Lord.  Note that we come before Him - which means we come into His presence (literally, in Hebrew, God's face). 

Fourth, we worship (shachah in Hebrew).  Shachah means to bow down.  The lesser comes into the presence of the Greater and acknowledges God's greatness, majesty, and holiness.  We bow down in humility before the Lord in the full beauty and radiance of His holiness.  Oh to give and come and bring and worship the Lord!