“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” Matthew 22:37

The chief end of man is to be occupied with God over everything else. Open the heart to the love of God, devote the will to the purpose of God, quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, feed the mind on the truth of God, and in so doing, recognise this isn’t about us, it’s all about Him.

Let’s never forget; we’re to be focussed on One. We should aim to worship Him actively, cheerfully, relevantly, creatively, sacrificially, reverentially and wholeheartedly. Don’t hold back. Never be too comfortable to give your all to the Lord.

Of course this is only possible when we realise that worship is the recovery, then rejoicing in our first love for Him. It involves repentance and right attitude, brokenness and desire, and requesting His compassion. But it’s also a lot more. Worship is forgetting our dignity and remembering His Deity. It’s hunger pangs in our hearts. It’s about a sacrifice of praise with a single intent – to attract God’s attention. It’s breaking down the walls of separation between us and God. It’s acts of penitence which call on God to open the windows of Heaven. It’s an invitation for God to come down and be among us. It’s remembering how God loves to be with His children. It’s intimacy with the Father. Like Bartimaeus, it’s refusing to let God pass by. It’s wanting an encounter with God that we won’t be able to get over. And it’s wanting nothing less than for God to reveal His face.

Furthermore, it must come from men and women who know what it means to have “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart” Psalm 51:17. That’s essential. It’s only when we worship the Lord with an outpouring of a burning heart that He will show up in a tangible and dynamic way. Worship should be the main course of everything we say or do. For it’s only when our worship is more than a warm up act, more than an appetizer, and more than a curtain raiser that we’ll truly get to meet Him.

So make sure your life is characterized by intimacy with the Father, by a vibrant relationship with the Son, and by a daily hosting of the Holy Spirit. For to stop short or settle for anything less isn’t good enough. We must desire more than thrills and chills. More than holy goose-bumps. More than the smell of His fragrance. And more than a temporary visitation. Ultimately, we must want to know Jesus in all His vitality, glory and power – to pursue Him until we see Him face to face.