made.

Romans 12:1: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.

Revelation 4:8-11: Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

Last night while looking at these two scriptures above, a few things just really stuck out to me:

•The winged-creatures and elders in heaven worshipping God nonstop for eternity. NONSTOP. Honestly, can you imagine doing anything, let alone worshipping God, NONSTOP for eternity?
• The winged-creatures were created to worship, and worship they certainly did. They did what they were made to do.
•The winged-creatures worship spurred the twenty-four elders to worship. It made me really think of the fact that what we do truly effects others. When we are living abundant, full lives through Jesus, we are showing the rest of the world that they can do the same.
•Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God is what is our “true and proper worship” is.

So after seeing those things, I decided to look up the original meaning of “worship” in both of these passages. What I found for the one word were two different meanings in Greek.

In the Romans passage, the Greek word used for worship is latreia, which means:

I. service rendered for hire
A. any service or ministration: the service of God
II. the service and worship of God according to the requirements of the Levitical law
III. to perform sacred services

And in the Revelation passage, the Greek word used for worship is proskyneō, which means:

I. to kiss the hand to (towards) one, in token of reverence
II. among the Orientals, esp. the Persians, to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound reverence
III. in the NT by kneeling or prostration to do homage (to one) or make obeisance, whether in order to express respect or to make supplication
A. used of homage shown to men and beings of superior rank
i. to the Jewish high priests
ii. to God
iii. to Christ
iv. to heavenly beings
v. to demons

Two entirely different meanings of worship, but they complement each other perfectly. One form of worship, at first glance, appears to be entirely rigid (i.e., a service rendered for hire) and the other coming from a complete place of adoration. But it is impossible to worship God without both of those forms, together.

From the moment we are baptized, we enter into a binding, covenantal relationship with God. Essentially, we enter into a contract with Him. At baptism, we are committing our entire life and being to God. A few weeks ago, I was at a church retreat and in a class, the instructor summed it up beautifully. He said that at baptism, there’s a negotiation that takes place. Either we die or He dies. As part of our contract, when entering into this relationship with God, we die. We die to ourselves, our desires, everything we did to live for ourselves prior to when we welcomed Him into our hearts. When you begin employment at a new job, what do you do? You sign a contract to perform a service for your employer. So to hold up your end of the contract, you perform your service and your employer pays you. Likewise with God. He died for us and saved our souls. Worshipping Him is us holding up our end of the contract. But we can’t just worship God out of duty–where’s the relationship in that? There’s no heart there, there’s no love in just performing strictly out of duty. The very center of the gospel, the reason why Jesus even died for us, is because of His love.

That love is what spurs us to love (“We love because He first loved us” 1 John 4:19). It’s this love that sparks the loving, adoring, and reverent worship. Because we love Him, we want to obey Him. We want to please Him, we want to sacrifice our lives and our will to please Him. That obedient heart that we are to worship Him with (in the Romans passage) comes from a loving, awestruck heart (in the Revelation passage). And that loving, awestruck heart is a heart that truly trusts God. You will love and obey someone you absolutely trust.

And there are different ways to worship God. The winged-creatures didn’t worship God in the same way that the twenty-four elders did. We all have different ways of glorying in our Creator. Through whatever He has gifted us to do, whether it be singing, teaching, serving, ministering, etc., these are the ways we worship God. In our frailty, it is unfathomable that a creature can worship God day and night forever and ever. But when we live out what God has designed us to do, we are pretty much doing the exact same thing: worshipping God through honoring and giving glory to Him in everything we do BY everything we do. All the time. It’s all for Him.

We honor God and give glory to Him through our worship; our worship out of a reverent, loving, and awestruck heart and out of an obedient heart.