Worship

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

Walk into a first-century temple and you’d encounter an area for worship. It may look different depending on the god or goddess. But no doubt about it, the temple was a place of worship. Worship was overseen and entrusted to the priest or priestess. They were the go-between for God and people. Peter reminds the new believers they are now priests in the new temple because of what Jesus did on the cross. They show worship by offering spiritual sacrifices. Paul, another early Jesus-follower, gives us insight into being a sacrifice. He challenges believers to be a living sacrifice because God wants that kind of worship.

A living sacrifice isn’t just a one-and-done. We can’t just show up to a building, worship through a sacrifice and move on. It’s much more than that. That’s what makes the church as a temple so radical. It changes how we think and act when we think of the church as a temple and we are its priests. Worship goes from something we do in a building to something we do at work, on the practice field and in our kitchens. It’s about bringing our best to those situations and treating the people around us like they are created in the image of God. It’s a new definition of what it means to worship.

Return to the weekend service through the song Build My Life sung by the Ada Bible Worship Team. The lyrics talk about how God is worthy of worship. The music makes it clear that the result of this is that “I will build my life upon your love; it is a firm foundation.”

2022 BIBLE MEMORY PRACTICE

Develop spiritual roots and tap in the power of God’s word by memorizing monthly a Bible verse! View previous verses at beyondtheweekend.org/biblememorypractice.

JAMES 1:19–20
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.