J. I. Packer:
We are constantly told that worship is the supreme Christian activity. True, no doubt. But what is worship? Our culture knows nothing about worship and dismisses it as something Christians do in church in which it is not interested, so it we ourselves, as children of our culture, are clueless about worship at this present moment, it should come as no surprise. Recognizing this possibility, however, I will take nothing for granted and begin at the very beginning. The first step toward forming sound ideals of worship is to get clear as to its essential nature. So let us try first to see what it is.
The history of the word gives us our answer. The noun WORSHIP is a contraction of WORTHSHIP. Used as a verb, it means "to ascribe worth" or "to acknowledge value." To worship God is to recognize his worthiness—to look Godward and acknowledge in all appropriate ways the value of what we see. The Bible calls this activity giving glory to God. It views this as our ultimate end and, from one point of view, our whole duty. "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name" (Ps 29:2; 96:8). "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31).
Scripture views the glorifying of God as a sixfold activity:
(1) praising God for all that he is and all his achievements,
(2) thanking him for his gifts and goodness to us,
(3) asking him to meet our own and others' needs,
(4) offering him our gifts, our service and ourselves,
(5) learning of him from his Word, read and preached, and obeying his voice, and
(6) telling others God's "worth" by public confession and testimony to what has been done for us.
We might say that these basic elements of worship can be phrased as follows:
(1) "Lord, you are wonderful,"
(2) "Thank you, Lord,"
(3) "Please, Lord,"
(4) "Take this, Lord,"
(5) "Yes, Lord," and
(6) "Listen, everybody!"
The psalms abundantly illustrate all six.
Source, originally from Knowing Christianity
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