“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, ESV)
An Opportunity?
Things continue to change rapidly around us. We are having to figure out what the “new normal” will be during this pandemic. Social distancing is forcing us to change the way we live our daily lives. Across the nation, churches are canceling public worship services to assist in social distancing measures.
We don’t want things to continue like this forever. Yet, I wonder if this is an opportunity for us to learn something.
Everyday Worship
Over the last decade, one of the criticisms of the American church has been that we only worship on Sunday mornings. Many attend a worship service on Sunday morning, never to think about worship until the following Sunday. A separation has formed between our everyday lives and acts of worship.
Yet, as Sunday morning worship services have been canceled (or at least moved to livestreams), we have an opportunity to think about what it looks like to worship every day, in every aspect of our lives.
Living Sacrifice
As I’ve mentioned before, scripture calls for every aspect of our life to be worship to God. In Romans 12:1, Paul says that you are “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” That means offering every aspect of your life to God as a sacrifice. It means laying your job, your home, your family, your finances, your life into God’s hands as a sacrifice to Him. Everything. And Paul says that when we do this, we are worshiping. This is what it looks like to worship God in every aspect of our everyday lives.
Worshiping While Quarantined
So, we have an opportunity to learn how to more effectively worship in this way. As we social distance, and are “quarantined” in our homes, we can still worship. We MUST continue to worship.
Of course that means singing songs of praise to our God in our homes, but it means much more. It means praying throughout our day that God would work in and through you during this time. It means seeking to glorify God by the way you spend your days at home. It means continually laying our country, community, church, and family into God’s hands—trusting Him. It means working at our jobs as if Jesus were our boss. It means looking out for the sick, needy, and vulnerable. It means loving our neighbors as ourselves. It means a lot more than I can list here.
Adoration, Submission, Trust, & Joy
I recently preached a series on Everyday Worship. In that series I defined worship as our “response of adoration, submission, trust, and joy to who God is and what He has done.” I’ve touched on the first three aspects of worship already. I want to end by touching on the last one: joy.
The power of the Christian life is that we can find joy in the midst of difficult situations like these. We can suffer with those who are suffering and we can weep with those who are weeping, but we can still have joy in the Lord. Paul says this about the Macedonian believers: “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” (2 Corinthians 8:1–2, ESV). In the midst of our own severe test of affliction, let us not settle for a “joyless Christianity,” but may God continue to stir our hearts to worship Him in an “abundance of joy” in every aspect of our every day lives.