WORSHIP A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word darkness on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
And now the wants are told, that brought
Thy children to thy knee;
Here, lingering still, we ask for naught
But simply worship thee.
William Bright (1921– )
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.
Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)
By making a lot of religious din we assure our faltering hearts that everything is well, and, conversely, we suspect silence and regard it as a proof that the meeting is “dead.”
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
First worship God.
He that forgets to pray
Bids not himself good-morrow
Or good-day.
Thomas Randolph (1523–1590)
God is looking for worshipers. And if the religious elite are too proud or too busy to learn to worship him, he seeks the worship of those whose lives are trapped in moral ruin.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. . . . The very stones would praise him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels would leap to do his will.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
He who knows God reverences him.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.-a.d. 65)
How often Christians assume they have worshiped God simply because they have been in church! We are told that the church building is “God’s house” (an inaccurate designation borrowed from the Old Testament temple) and conclude that worship must take place there! Not necessarily. God was not pleased with the worship at Jerusalem (the Holy City). Nor is he impressed with beautiful cathedrals.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
I lay my “whys”
before your cross
in worship kneeling,
my mind too numb
for thought,
my heart beyond
all feeling:
And worshiping,
realize that I
in knowing you
don’t need a “why.”
Ruth Bell Graham
In worship we meet the power of God and stand in its strengthening.
Nels F. S. Ferré (1769–1821)
If we haven’t learned to be worshipers, it doesn’t really matter how well we do anything else.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
If worship does not change us, it has not been worship. To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Worship begins in holy expectancy; it ends in holy obedience.
Richard J. Foster (1942– )
If you can leave your church on Sunday morning with no feeling of discomfort, of conviction, of brokenness, of challenge, then for you the hour of worship has not been as dangerous as it should have been. The ease with which we go on being Christian sentimentalists is one of our worst faults.
Paul Stromberg Rees (1900– )
It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
Jesus, where’er thy people meet,
There they behold thy mercy seat;
Where’er they seek thee thou art found,
And every place is hallowed ground.
William Cowper (1731–1800)
Man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. If he worships not the true God, he will have his idols.
Theodore Parker (1810–1860)
Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for a God. Whether he worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face upturned to the sun, kneels toward Mecca or, regarding all space as a temple, communes with the heavenly Father according to the Christian creed, man is essentially devout.
William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925)
Many regular church attenders consistently focus their minds on sporting events, business affairs, or matters of personal interest as soon as the sermon begins. Many so-called worshipers can tell you what dress the pastor’s wife wore in the service, but cannot recall the text of the sermon or the application of the message to their lives.
Richard Owen Roberts (1931– )
More spiritual progress can be made in one short moment of speechless silence in the awesome presence of God than in years of mere study.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
Prostrate before thy throne to lie,
And gaze and gaze on thee!
Frederick William Faber (1814–1863)
Silent worship seems to friends to be their natural method. It is healing; it is uniting; it cleanses, challenges, stimulates. It helps us to get down to those deeper currents of the soul that are so often neglected in life’s hurry and bustle; it enables us to center down into fellowship with the Eternal and to hear the still small voice of God.
Gerald K. Hibbert (1872–1957)
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from its throne,
And worship only thee.
William Cowper (1731–1800)
The glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God.
Saint Irenaeus (c. 130–c. 200)
The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevski (1821–1881)
The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery on the other hand is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship.
Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
The worship of God is not a rule of safety—it is an adventure of the spirit.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
There are delights that the heart may enjoy in the awesome presence of God that cannot find expression in language; they belong to the unutterable element in Christian experience. Not many enjoy them because not many know that they can. The whole concept of ineffable worship has been lost.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
There may be worship without words!
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
This is adoration: not a difficult religious exercise, but an attitude of the soul.
Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941)
Those who worship God merely from fear would worship the devil, too, if he appear.
Sir Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)
To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.
Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944)
Transfixed with thanks, folded in love,
I cannot adore enough. I cannot speak.
Myrna Reid Grant (1934– )
We pay God honor and reverence, not for his sake (because he is of himself full of glory to which no creature can add anything), but for our own sake.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
What comes from the Lord because it is impossible for humans to manufacture it? Wisdom. What comes from humans because it is impossible for the Lord to experience it? Worry. And what is it that brings wisdom and dispels worry? Worship.
Charles R. Swindoll (1934– )
What was our Lord thinking about as he walked along the roads of Galilee, so often alone? What were his thoughts in times of repose, during the journeys by boat that he liked making with his disciples after a day’s exhausting preaching? What occupied his mind among the hills where he liked to go alone, without even the disciples? The answer, we may think, is easy: he was thinking of men, of sinners and their salvation, and what he had to do to effect that salvation. But, surprising as it may seem to us, it wasn’t with us that Jesus was concerned. The constant object of his meditation, the natural orientation of his heart and mind and soul, the food that constantly nourished him, was his Father.
Louis Evely (1910– )
Whatever is outward in worship must come as a direct result of what is inward—otherwise, it will be form without power.
Howard Brinton
Who worship God, shall find him.
Humble love,
And not proud reason, keeps the door of heaven;
Love finds admission, where proud science fails.
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
Without the worship of the heart, liturgical prayer becomes formal routine.
Aelred Graham (1909– )
For worship is a thirsty land crying out for rain,
It is a candle in the act of being kindled,
It is a drop in quest of the ocean, . . .
It is a voice in the night calling for help,
It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the universe, . . .
It is time flowing into eternity, . . .
[It is] a man climbing the altar stairs to God.
Dwight Bradley
Worship is a way of living, a way of seeing the world in the light of God . . . to rise to a higher level of existence, to see the world from the point of view of God.
Abraham J. Heschel (1907–1972)
Worship is giving to God the best he has given us.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
Worship is not a part of the Christian life; it is the Christian life.
Gerald Vann (1906–1963)
Worship is pictured at its best in Isaiah when the young prophet became aware of the Father, aware of his own limitations, aware of the Father’s directives, and aware of the task at hand.
David Julius
Worship is the highest and noblest act that any person can do. When men worship, God is satisfied! And when you worship, you are fulfilled! Think about this: why did Jesus Christ come? He came to make worshipers out of rebels. We who were once self-centered have to be completely changed so that we can shift our attention outside of ourselves and become able to worship him.
Raymond C. Ortlund
Worship is transcendent wonder.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
Worship isn’t listening to a sermon, appreciating the harmony of the choir, and joining in singing hymns! It isn’t even prayer, for prayer can be the selfish expression of an unbroken spirit. Worship goes deeper. Since God is spirit, we fellowship with him with our spirit; that is, the immortal and invisible part of us meets with God, who is immortal and invisible.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
Worship means “to feel in the heart.”
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
Worship renews the spirit as sleep renews the body.
Richard Clarke Cabot (1868–1939)
