God Speaking

“How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!”

(Psalm 47: 2)

It is always surprising to me how the meaning of words can change with general usage and with time lose all the depth of the power they first had when they came into being. One of those words is, awesome.  Young people use it with abandon, using it to describe a new article of clothing a friend is wearing, or some fun activity they participated in or to just interject it into a story someone is telling them, and by doing so, rob that incredible word of its true impact, rendering it to a casual word uttered without any thought to its real meaning. The other word that has suffered the same fate is worship.  We have heard it casually, such as

• he worships the ground she walks on
• all she worships is money
• young teens worship the latest rock star

Again, taking away the true seriousness of this word.

The dictionary defines the word, awesome as Inspired by what is subline and majestic

The dictionary describes the word worship as To honour, to revere, to regard with deep devotion, to adore.

So, when the Psalmist called the Heavenly Father, awesome, they were using it in its true sense and again they knew the true meaning of worship.

“Come, let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” (Psalm 95: 6 – 7)

Our church is conducting a wonderful series on studying the book of Revelation, and on Sunday our young worship leader led us through Chapter 4, entitled, Worship and the Royal Throne of God.  John is taken by the Holy Spirit and can witness true worship and watches in awe as numerous creatures praise God continually saying;

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Revelation 4: 8)

Then the 24 elders cast down their crowns before the Throne of the Most High God and John hears them exclaim;

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4: 11)

True worshipping of an awesome God.

Our young Pastor then asked us to rethink about what we considered worship to be and, in particular, our own participation in worship. I had to think long and hard about this and realised that perhaps I had become casual about praising our Heavenly Father and not remembering his majesty and forgetting what an awesome God he is.

Going back to re-read many of the Psalms is a great way to revive our sense of awe and a wonderful way to instill real worship into our prayers which I find so powerful in the Psalmist’s words;

“Praise the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God. You are very great; and you are clothed with splendour and majesty.” (Psalm 104: 1)