Psalm 119:164
I wholeheartedly concur with the statement, that the prime purpose of Christianity is the proper adoration of God. Surely, we must proactively evangelize the lost, support the missionary endeavors of the church, rescue the perishing, feed the hungry, visit and care for the fatherless and the homeless, lift up the weak, but beyond all that, may we not never forget that it is our primary duty to give proper adoration to God. As His anointed followers we must preach the gospel, teach His precepts, fellowship with the saints, but can we truly survive as His body without worshipping Him, as we are instructed to do in His life-giving Word.
I believe the more we get to understand who He is, the more we are compelled to fall on our faces and worship, to bow our knees and adore, to raise our hands and glorify Him. We joyfully exclaim “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised . . . (Psalm 145:3). We must repeatedly affirm and articulate how great He is. We seek to imitate David when he disclosed, “Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgements” (Psalm 119:164). Like David we confess “But I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more” (Psalm 71:14). Can we get to this point of worshipping Him in a more perfect and improved way? This church must worship Him more!
I really pray that in this year, 2023, this imperfect church will worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in a more perfect and better way. May pure praise perpetually proceed from our lips – that we will not be so eager to proceed with our own agendas as we so often seek to promote and advance ourselves. It is my considered opinion, many more miracles will transpire in our local assemblies and private lives as we follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, who directed the first apostolic bishops of the church “to give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). Could we just spend more time in the temple of prayer, ministering to the Lord in sincere worship as they did in the origins of this Pentecostal church found in the book of Acts, and rejuvenated in the last century (Acts 5:42, Acts 13:2). They were a church that prioritized the worship of Jesus, not just in the temple, but by the riverside (Acts 16:13) and even at midnight in prison (Acts 16:25). They refused to stop worshipping and lifting up the name of Jesus.
It must never be disavowed that this God who is revealed to us in the Scriptures – is infinite. He is infinitely near and infinitely far. He is the Infinite/Personal God of the ages. He is all-encompassing. He is beyond space, outlasting time. He is boundless and unfathomable. He is present in all time and space. He is there and here. He is everywhere and in every now, and right now and right here we can have a divine encounter with Him – a real God-moment. To think He is all over the universe and that He is available to us right now – is a thought too precious for words. This surely is an invocation to worship!
Therefore, can we just worship Him right now! Forget about yourselves, concentrate on Him and worship Him even more. It’s really time to do like David – and declare “Seven times a day do I praise thee . . .” (Psalm 119:164). Worship Him Even More!
Leroy V. Greenaway
Presiding Bishop, Northeast Region
