Loving God and Others is an Essential Part of Real Worship!

In the past two weeks I posted articles explaining that as children understand how obedience is lived in their everyday lives, they’ll see worship as the natural outflow of obedience and a major part of their everyday lives and talked about Able, Seth and Noah and how they were obedient real worshipers! I also posted about Caleb and Josiah and how they are just two examples of Bible people who chose to worship God by giving their all to God! This is a major part of worship!  In fact, if we do not give our all to God, we can’t worship Him. 

Today I want us to consider along with worshiping by obeying, giving our all and music, we worship God by loving others. We do not have to look any farther than at what Jesus said and modeled for us to see how essential loving others is if we are going to be real worshipers of God! In Mark 12 one of the teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?” Jesus said . . . 

 ²⁹ ”Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’—(Deuteronomy 6:4,5) ³¹And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’—(Leviticus 19:18)There is no commandment more important than these.”

 ³² ”You have spoken well, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one. There is no other God but him. ³³ To love God with all your heart and mind and strength is very important. So is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

Jesus not only said loving God and loving others were the most important things, but He showed it by the way He lived and died. If we want the children in our ministries to really understand what real worship is all about, then we need to show it by modeling real worship of God by loving/serving others. When we elevate loving and serving others as the ultimate act of worship our faith will be real and active and will result in joy and worship with music.

• Involve children in quarterly or at least semi-annual service projects to “Put Feet to Their Faith” and be sure to share these acts of service/worship with their class.

• Make the big commitment to presenting a full picture of worship by beginning each week’s music worship with sharing how children “Put Feet to Their Faith” and showed love/service for others and then allow the music worship to flow!

As the children, and adults, in our church have the opportunity to experience more full, more complete worship they’ll understand worship of God is a real part of their everyday lives!