by Pastor Daniel

Introduction
You will see the words, “Enter to worship, exit to serve” as you enter the church main entrance.  For those who have not noticed it, the next time you enter, try looking above the glass door entrance downstairs.  What does that mean?

Enter to worship
It is about going into the house of God offering a sacrifice of worship.  That is what every Jew would have in their mind as they entered the house of God.

Nehemiah 10:39
“For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers.  We will not neglect the house of our God.”

In the Old Testament, worship is about giving.  They gave and made sacrifices to the Lord with a thankful heart.  It is not so much receiving.  They came acknowledging that God is the Lord of their lives and their nation.

That is what worship is all about.  When we enter the house of God, may  we enter with the same attitude and spirit - to give to the Lord that which is due to Him.  “What can we give”, you may ask. 

We give Him our praise and worship
That is the only thing we ourselves could actually give to God.  The worship that is due to him.  As we enter God’s house each time, among God’s people - be it in the church worship services, the care groups meeting, the prayer meeting or any meeting and service, we begin with praise and worship.  The reason is simply to give to God what is due to Him.  When we do that we acknowledge His Lordship over our lives as the Israelites did.

We give Him our gifts
So often we hear the worship leader saying, “let us worship God with our tithes and offerings”.  How do we do that?  Well, the attitude of giving continues in our giving of our gifts to God.  In the olden days, giving came in the form of grain, wine or oil.  They are the essentials in their daily living.  Those are items needed for living day to day, basic things with which they make their daily food.  It goes to show that their daily lives are dependent on God alone and thus surrendering their daily needs to God.

In such a giving, it is acknowledging the God who provides for them.  Likewise today, that is what the worship leader meant when he said that we worship God with our giving.  Today, we do not bring grains or oil or wine, but like the Israelites, we also bring our basic necessity in life and that happens to be our money.  When we bring our offerings to God, we are worshipping the God who sees to our daily needs.

When David wanted to give to the building of God’s temple, he said, “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly?  For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.” (I Chronicles 29:14)

King David got his theology right when he said that all that he was giving actually came from the hands of God in the first place.  That is true worship.  It is strange that today, some of God’s people get agitated when someone talks about money.  It is only biblical that we learn to acknowledge our provider God.

We give Him our hearts
In the New Testament, the giving is expanded or rather made explicitly clear in 2 Corinthians 8:2-5, “…their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.  For they gave according to their means, …beyond their means….., but they gave themselves first tot he Lord….”

The Christians gave some according to their means and some beyond their means but more importantly, they gave themselves to the Lord.  In Romans 12:1-2, Paul made an appeal to the Christians there to present their bodies as a living sacrifice which is their spiritual worship.

Worship thus is about giving of ourselves to the Lord.
Jesus himself defined true worship as one who worships God in spirit and in truth.  What does that mean?  I believe he is saying that when we worship God, it involves the whole person.  In spirit simply means that it is spiritual and when it is spiritual, it is about the whole person.  In truth is about honesty and integrity of heart which again means the real person.  There is no pretense, there is no deception, there is absolutely no hiding from God.  That is how we worship our God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Let us approach God’s throne each time withholding nothing from Him - whether it is in gifts or more importantly our hearts and our being.  The blessings of the Lord then will come upon His children, as seen in Malachi 3:10, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”  While this verse is a challenge, it also goes to show the kind of God we have - the one who sees to all our needs.  Let us enter to worship!