Excerpts from book by A W Tozer
Hardly anything is missing from our churches these days – except the most important thing. We are missing the genuine and sacred offerings of ourselves and our worship to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We should not be concerned about working for God until we have learned the meaning and delight of worshiping Him. A worker who does not worship is only piling up wood, hay and stubble for the time when God sets the world on fire.
God is trying to call us back to that for which He created us – to worship Him and enjoy Him forever!
Any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.
God has provided His salvation that we might be individually and personally, vibrant children of God, loving God with all our hearts and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness.
God calls us to worship, but in many instances we are in entertainment, just running a poor second to the theaters.
Practically every great deed done in the church of Christ all the way back to the apostle Paul was done by people blazing with the worship of their God.
Wherever the church has come out of her lethargy, rising from her sleep and into the tides of revival and spiritual renewal, always the worshipers were back of it.
God’s highest desire is that every one of His believing children should so love and so adore Him that we are continually in His presence, in spirit and in truth.
True worship of God must be a constant and consistent attitude or state of mind within the believer. It will always be a sustained and blessed acknowledgment of love and adoration, subject in this life to degrees of perfection and intensity.
Having been made in His image, we have within us the capacity to know God and the instinct that we should worship Him.
The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration {new birth}.
God loves us for ourselves. He values our love more than He values galaxies of new created worlds. He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust.
The presence of God in our midst – bringing a sense of godly fear, reverence and divine sacredness in worship – this is largely missing today in the churches.
There are certain kinds of worship that God will not accept though they may be directed toward Him and meant to be given to Him.
Instead of getting down on our knees and letting the Lord judge us, we stand with pride and judge the Lord.
It is the operation of the Spirit of God within us that enables us to worship God acceptably. So worship originates with God and comes back to us and is reflected from us, as a mirror. God accepts no other kind of worship.
Worship must be by the Holy Spirit and truth. We cannot worship in the spirit alone for the spirit without truth is helpless. We cannot worship in truth alone, for that would be theology without fire. It must be the truth of God and the Spirit of God.
Multitudes of cultured, religious people are merely carrying on church traditions and religious customs and they are not actually reaching God at all.
We must humbly worship God in spirit and in truth. Each one of us stands before the truth to be judged.
Much of our problem in continuing fellowship with a holy God is that many Christians repent only for what they do, and not for what they are {selfish, prideful, worldly, etc.}.
Unless we arouse ourselves spiritually, unless we are brought back to genuine love and adoration and worship, our candlestick could be removed.
Real worship is, among other things, a feeling about the Lord our God. It is in our hearts. And we must be willing to express it in an appropriate manner.
If we love the Lord and are led by His Holy Spirit, our worship will always bring a delighted sense of admiring awe and a sincere humility on our part.
There must be humility in the heart of the person who would worship God in spirit and in truth.
If there is no wonder, no experience of mystery, our efforts to worship will be futile. There will be no worship without the Spirit.
If God can be understood and comprehended by any of our human means, then I cannot worship Him. I will never bend my knees and cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” to that which I have been able to figure out in my own mind.
To adore God means to love Him with all the powers within us. We love Him with fear and wonder and yearning and awe. Sadly, God’s children rarely go beyond the boundaries of gratitude.
Where there is genuine adoration and fascination, God’s child wants nothing more than the opportunity to pour out his or her love at the Savior’s feet.
To worship God is to show forth the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. To worship is to reflect the glories of Christ ever shining upon us through the ministries of the Holy Spirit.
If there is anything in me that refuses to worship, then there is nothing in me that worships God very well. No worship is wholly pleasing to God until there is nothing in me displeasing to God.
There is no limit to what God can do through us if we are His yielded and purified people, worshiping and showing forth His glory and His faithfulness.
No church that has found the delight and satisfaction of adoring worship that springs automatically from love and obedience to God can ever perish.
Biblical Truth for the Last Days 