I’ve heard worship described through
the years in so many ways. As an hour-
long service you attend on Sunday
morning. As a genre of music played
on your local Christian radio station.
But I’d never heard it described, like
Paul did, as a full-on, lifelong surrender.
When we surrender ourselves to God,
we worship him. Surrendering doesn’t
lead us into worship; our surrender is
our worship.
That seemed so profoundly simple!
My first response was relief. In Paul’s
worship paradigm, surrender outranks
emotion. Of course, worship of God
engages our emotions, but for Paul
emotion wasn’t the main requirement.
Surrender was. The proper response of
people who have been given everything
is to present their very lives to the one
who has given them everything. This is
our reasonable act of worship.
My second response was a feeling
of apprehension. Hold on now—a
holy and blameless sacrifice? Me?
Anyone who has ever met me knows
I wouldn’t qualify for that. And Paul
himself already said that all of us have
sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
I can’t present myself as a holy and
blameless sacrifice on the basis of my
track record. But I can present myself
to God as holy and blameless based
on his mercy!
God does not expect perfection from
his children. What a relief that is!
When he looks at each one of us, he
doesn’t see the skeletons in our closet,
our self-centeredness gone rogue, our
past failures, or even our potential for
future failure. Before he sees anything
else, he sees in us the righteousness
of Jesus. We don’t surrender our lives
to God to gain his favor. We offer
ourselves to him in response to the
favor he’s already freely shown us
because of the saving work of Jesus!
Paul’s words finally relieved me of
my mistaken notion that worship is
something that’s done out of sheer,
sustained joy in the Lord. I’ve heard
worship referred to as “worth-ship”—
literally a time to show God his worth—
and the worth of God is not something
“
Worship is the lived
experience of offering
my s e l f, m o m e nt by
moment and day by
day, to a living God.
36 • Solutions