I recently heard a story from a pastor that was potty training his 20 month old daughter. He said one day he was in the bathroom doing his business (number 1) when his daughter came in and saw him. She clapped her hands and smiled saying “pee pee,” she then went to the toilet and kissed it. The pastor says “No baby that is nasty, don’t kiss toilets,” and as he was saying this he picked her up. When he picked her up she wanted to give him a kiss.
Why would this girls own father not let her kiss him? That is easy, because she just kissed a toilet!! The pastor went on to say that God spoke to him saying that he had been guilty of kissing toilets all week long and then came to church on Sunday expecting to kiss God.
Immediately this spoke to my heart. How many times have we gone all week kissing toilets, or in other words living like the world and doing things that “We” want to do and not do things that God wants us to do. We live like hell all week without once worshiping our risen Savior and then we come to church on Sundays and expect to worship Him then, or “Kiss Him.” Just like the pastor would not let his daughter kiss him after she kissed the toilet, I don’t believe God will let us kiss Him on Sundays after we have turned our back on Him the rest of the week. This sort of reminds me of Judas. Are we not in a sense mocking God when we come to Him once a week and try to kiss Him? I don’t want to be like Judas, instead I want to be like Jesus because the Bible clearly says in Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. While we can never be perfect as Jesus was when He was here on earth, we can however strive to imitate Him and be Holy because he is Holy. (1 Peter 1:16)
How are we to be Holy? One way I have thought of that would help us in our quest to be holy is worship. What is worship? According to websters.com worship is a reverent honor and homage paid to God. When I think of worship I think of someone bowing down to something greater and more powerful than them. Kind of like in movies when we see people bow down before the king and worship him. That is exactly how we are supposed to be to our King. We should bow down and worship Him. We should worship Him because He sent His only son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. The Bible tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) But the good news is that God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). God loves us so much that he gave his own son to die on a cross for us, and whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life (John 3:16). To have everlasting life we have to give our lives to Jesus, invite Him to cleanse us and forgive us of our sin, in other words we need to be saved. Once we are saved then true worship begins. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead then you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Everyone that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13). This is why I worship God. He gave His sons life up for mine. Jesus was murdered on a cross so that I may live! I can’t truly wrap my head around that, but I thank God for his son Jesus everyday and the new life that I have in Him. Now that is a reason to praise God!
But, how do we worship? I grew up thinking that worship was the singing we did for 30 minutes before the pastor came up and delivered a message. I have since realized that worship is not even about singing. Singing is not worship. However, singing is a tool used to worship a living God. But singing is not the only way we worship. Here are a few other ways that we can worship God throughout the week and not just by singing on Sunday mornings.
Worship through Prayer – When we pray we are usually thanking God for something He has done or asking Him to help us. We recognize that God is awesome and we worship Him through prayer because we know He is almighty and can do anything.
Worship by reading the Bible – All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Worship through giving/tithing – When we worship through tithing or giving we are being obedient to God’s word found in the Bible. (See how this ties together nicely) The Bible tells us to bring 10% of our earnings to God. You can check this out in Malachi 3:8-10. If we don’t tithe we are robbing God, but by tithing we are being obedient therefore worshiping God.
Worship by Serving Others/Being Obedient - I have tied serving others and being obedient together because when we serve others then we are being obedient to Gods word. God tells us to serve others. Jesus spent his life on earth serving others, He was a true servant in every sense of the word. So if we are going to be imitators of God, then we should serve others and be like Jesus. We should also be obedient to His word (The Bible). We should live according to Gods standards and not the worlds. When we live our daily lives according to His standards and not the worlds then again we are worshiping on a daily basis. Everyday we should deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus (Mark 8:34).
Worship with music – Finally I am at what used to be my biggest misconception about worship and what worship really is. I always thought this was the only way to worship but now I see that it is not. However, music and instruments are another way to worship. The Bible tells us time and time again to worship the Lord with stringed instruments, loud crashing symbols, sing praises and hymns to God. Throughout the book of Psalms the word tells us to do these things. We have to be careful when we Praise and worship God with our voices and instruments. If we are just singing the songs or just playing the instruments then we are not worshiping. Worship begins in our heart and in our spirit. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Musical instruments and our voices are an added bonus when worshiping. We just have to know how to worship using both tools.
These 5 things are ways that we can worship God on a daily basis and not just on Sundays. Our focus should be to kiss God daily which comes from denying ourselves daily and taking up our cross (Mark 8:34). When we truly deny ourselves and follow Jesus then we will worship Him daily. Denying ourselves has to happen every morning when we wake up. Just like we have a decision on what type of cereal we want for breakfast that morning, we have to make the decision whether or not we will deny ourselves and follow Jesus or not. If we don’t follow Jesus then we will be following a worldly standard that will lead us into a life of sin.
My challenge to whoever reads this is to stop kissing toilets and start worshiping our beautiful Savior Jesus who died for our sins and shed blood that paid our debt in full. All we have to do is accept His free gift of Salvation. Without salvation we can’t worship. Worship begins when we believe in Jesus for the first time. Our lives should be lives filled with worship, and we should worship Him daily.
So stop kissing toilets and have a Worship Filled Life!!
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