What is the Significance of Worshiping God?
What exactly is the significance of worshiping God? Why should we worship God? These are questions about which many people are unclear. It is as natural for the beings of creation to worship their Creator as it is proper and just and a matter of course. It is a holy duty that must not be shirked. Furthermore, it is an honor and a privilege for the beings of creation to worship their Lord and Creator who wrought the very universe and everything in it. The Creator’s almightiness and holiness are too great, so no created being can come close to Him. God is so almighty, great and awesome. If mankind, the beings of creation, were to see God and His glory, what would they be like? Do you have an idea? There is a passage in the Bible, the gist of it is that a person would die if they gazed upon the face of God, and he could not survive such an event. So, what does this illustrate? It illustrates how great God is, how holy He is and how insignificant mankind is. People are nothing more than dirt who can’t even gaze upon God. Let me provide an example: This is similar to the sun that God created. Can people approach the sun? No, they cannot. For us earthlings, when it’s noon time, the blistering heat of the sun can scorch someone until they are unconscious, and perhaps kill them in extreme circumstances. Mankind cannot approach the sun, which was created by God, so mankind cannot come anywhere close to God’s person. From this fact we can make the mental connection about what would happen if a person were to truly see God’s face. If a person did gaze upon God’s face, he would probably melt into nothing, right? However, some people do not understand this point and they are persistent in their desire to see God’s face for themselves, and they pray to God that He reveals His face for them to see. Is this reasonable? No, not at all. Why is it not? Firstly, people are irrational. Secondly, people overestimate themselves. If you don’t really understand yourself, would you dare look at God? God is so grand, great, and holy that mankind cannot even see His face. Mankind does not even have words to describe God’s person and substance. Some have said that “God is a raging inferno.” Is that description accurate? It is inaccurate. So how would you give the description? There are no words in the tongues of man to give it; there’s just no way to do it. God is so great that mankind has no way to describe Him. He is so holy and awesome that mankind is left speechless to describe His appearance. How then, should mankind treat God? Man can only worship God to commune with Him, and it is only through worship that man can express their desires to God. It is also only through worship that mankind can connect and communicate with God to understand God’s will as well as submit to Him and satisfy Him. Therefore, the only effective way to have regular communication with God is through prayer and worship. In the history of God’s work, God has appeared to man several times, but it has never been His real person that was shown. God speaks through fire or a whirlwind, but mankind has never seen God’s face; they can only hear His words. This is one of the ways that God appears to people. Today, we have experienced God incarnate speaking His word to us and it is through the truths issued forth from Christ that corrupt humanity is judged and punished, which is another kind of significant appearance of God. So today, when we communicate with God, it is only through prayer and worship. Besides prayer and worship, if we wish to speak to God face-to-face or see His real person, that is something that will never be possible. Are you clear on this? Let’s think about this a bit more. In the Book of Revelation, it is recorded that the cherubs wait at God’s side. Cherubs are angels, so what happens when they look upon God? Do you know? They bow down before God and cry out day and night “Holy, holy, holy.” They only have words of praise in their mouths for God; there is only worship, nothing else. They do not use many words to worship God, only the calling out of “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!” So what does this illustrate? It shows that as mighty as the angels are, they stand before God with no way to describe His glory, and they have no other words to describe their reverence and admiration for God. What does this teach us? God is so great and holy! God truly deserves the praise and worship of all things in heaven and upon the earth! So, for God to allow the beings of creation to pray to Him and worship Him, it shows that He thinks highly of us. It is God’s greatest favor to us and shows His love for us. However, since we do not have a true understanding of worshiping God, we have not shown that we can worship Him; we only pester Him with incessant prayers that include requests for help, assistance for solving problems, and appeals to God for new opportunities. Such prayers are not true worship. Instead, they are attempts to exploit God. Now we know that if mankind does not come before God in worship, it shows how irrational mankind is, how mankind does not submit to God, does not understand Him, and does not know how to worship Him. Consider the angels in heaven: They worship Him constantly. Do the angels pray to Him for anything? No, they do not. The angels worship God continuously while we badger Him with prayers incessantly, one after the other. Mankind always asks for things, but never worships God; what does this signify? It shows just how blind and corrupt humanity is. They may have been believers for many, many years, but never truly worshiped Him; isn’t that being blind? It’s just like when a mother and father raise their child, yet their child not only doesn’t respect them, but doesn’t even acknowledge them as his or her parents. Isn’t that being blind? Isn’t this being an ungrateful child?! So, what does worshiping God do for people? Worshiping God can bring true joy and peace to people and it brings true life to mankind. A person who is able to live in front of God and worship Him shows that this person is rational, conscientious, dignified, and possesses good character. It shows that this person is able to defend his status as a being of creation and do his utmost to fulfill his obligations. If a person is able to pray to and worship God, it shows that he, as a being of creation and member of corrupt humanity, has truly turned toward God and returned before God. This is an example of witnessing. If someone has had faith in God for many years without truly praying to God or, furthermore, without truly worshiping God, is this someone who has genuinely turned toward God? No, this is not. Is this someone who has truly submitted to God? No, this is not. Then it is not even worth mentioning whether or not that person understands God.
What Exactly Is Worshiping God?
What exactly does it mean to worship God? This is a question that needs us to ponder. To define in a sentence what worshiping God means is something that is essentially impossible to express, but from the Book of Revelation in the Bible we can see how angels worship God, which does a very good job explaining this issue. The angels worship God by praising Him, which they do from the bottom of their hearts. They praise God continuously and without using many words. What does this illustrate? It illustrates that God is so great and almighty that it makes the angels lie prostrate before Him and continuously praise Him with no other words being spoken, only praises. How is it that the angels are able to praise God? The angels see the arrival of God’s glory and thus praise is a natural reaction for the angels. When people see the glory of God, they will immediately lie prostrate with hearts full of praise and no other words. This is a genuine reaction and is involuntary! What this matter shows is that the people who lack reverence for God haven’t the slightest understanding of God. It may be said that people who have faith in God but who do not worship Him lack a genuine understanding of God. If the Holy Spirit has really done His work on a person—having truly disciplined, judged, and chastised that person—then that person will know how awesome and almighty God is! The more experiences a person has with the Holy Spirit, the more of an understanding they will gain about God and the more reverence that person will cultivate for God; this is completely true. We see that people of different denominations, when they resisted God to certain extent, all encountered God’s discipline and punishment. So later when they went before God, they despised and cursed themselves. They said that they were the devil who deserved damnation, not life but a hundred deaths. Why did they say these things? They must have experienced God’s punishment or discipline, which is the only thing that could inspire them to say such things. Therefore, those people who have seen God and immediately fallen to the ground, with hearts full of praise for God and no other words on their lips. For them, one hundred praises would be too few, as would ten thousand, and they would not feel these praises were too repetitive for these would fill all the words they have. So with this sentence of praise, perhaps only by saying this sentence countless times would they be able to express their true feelings. What type of frame of mind is this? Who can imagine it? No one can. If you saw a mountain collapsing toward you, what frame of mind would you be in? If you saw the entire ocean surging toward you, how would you feel? If you saw a lion and a tiger loping toward you, what would be going through your mind? Aren’t those feelings just spontaneous? Aren’t those feelings just within you and not something you yourself created? Could you see a lion and not be afraid? How afraid would you be? You would be paralyzed with fear. Would you have the will to resist? I think not. Do you think people are insignificant or not? They are so insignificant. When there is nothing happening, people can be quite arrogant and attentive to no one. But when things happen they become cowardly. People are precisely as insignificant as dirt on the ground. So, if you did see a bit of God’s appearance or what God has done, you would immediately lie prostrate and you could do nothing else but praise Him. Now you know exactly what makes us worship God, right? When people view God’s glory they immediately worship Him. At that time, they needn’t others teach them or study it, they will immediately know how to do it. Today we have spoken of practicing prayer and worship, and that is because we do not see God’s real person. We just practice speaking to God and how to worship Him in the depths of our hearts. If one day great disasters happen, you will know without the teachings of others. You will know how almighty God is and how majestic and wrathful He is. At that time, you will be able to say those words of worship or praise that you couldn’t say before, right? During the severe earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008, some people felt the same way. They said some words, and I listened and knew that they saw the actions of God. It is only through experiences that people can say these things. You can now think for yourself what exactly constitutes true worship; you don’t need people to explain it to you. If the only one true God, who created the heavens and earth and all things, appeared before humanity one day, would people not worship Him? Who could resist worshiping Him? Does worship come spontaneously to you? It is involuntary. It comes naturally from your heart. No one has taught you and it does not come from some subjective willpower or human ideologies, and it is not something you can control. It is an involuntary thing both for your body and mind! When I say these things, you are all able to imagine the almightiness of the God we believe in, right? At usual times, we should ponder to know God’s actions—the actions He revealed in the Age of Law, in the Age of Grace, and in the Age of Kingdom. As we ponder, we will have some reverence for God inside. In this way, we will have some true entry in our prayers.
