Repent to Worship

Repent to Worship

I was asked what I do when I’m in that spot where you know what is true and what is good (praying to God, reading the scriptures, not being a bum), but there just isn’t an ounce of vitality in your soul or body that wants to do that.  Well I mumbled off some long winded reply, but I continued to think about it later.

And I think it can be summed up as “repent to worship”.

In the past few years God has shown me how both of these are so fundamental to the life of the believer, but, as often life goes, I forget the things I am taught, and wander around drifting in and out of the truths I know. 

Repentance is part of the rhythm of life. I used to think it was unimportant, and then I thought it was merely a part of conversion, but then it became clear that turning from sin and turning to Christ must be our moment by moment submission to God’s will for our lives.

let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus (Heb 12:1b-2a)

And worship, what God taught me mainly through John Piper, is at the very center of our life. It is the recognition that God is God, most highly to be sought after.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

And… I can’t even say necessarily that these things have been paired together logically in my mind until I looked back and analyzed where God had been moving my spirit.

He made my need for him clear, so that I would cry out in surrender.

What did this look like?

Well, it looked like driving in the car to go to a movie date, but feeling kinda sad and joyless. Not because of anything in particular, but because there wasn’t anything in particular that I had my mind fixed upon (and I don’t usually notice these things until I get alone by myself, without any tasks to distract me from the state of my soul).

So, I turned off the music and let out my plea for help. And I repented off the ways that I had not put God first, and thanked him for the good that he brought me in my day, sustaining me in my labors, providing for my needs. And then, for a cause that cannot be found in myself, I began to proclaim and sing who God was: king of kings, the one God, the Holy Trinity, the omnipotent Lord, my Savior, Redeemer.

Worship is most assuredly more than praise with our lips, but “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”.

One last note on the need for repentance to join with worship

The evil in my heart/mind is often great.

As Calvin says, “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” or also ”every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.”

And at the center is an idolatry of myself. I, myself, am my idol. And that is why to truly repent of this, I must replace this self-idolatry with worship of God.Thus my worship becomes repentance. And so we return to the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name...
forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.