The PULPIT

Worship is our heart-felt preoccupation with God, His Word, calling and purposes. The commonest Greek word for worship “proskuneo” means “I come forward to kiss.” Originally it referred to subjects falling down to kiss the king’s feet. It is the language of love, respect and identification.

The Hebrew word “Shachah” carries a similar understanding. Essentially it means, “to prostrate” (before royalty or God), “to bow down” or “to do reverence.” True worship therefore calls us to cultivate an unadulterated reverence for God, an adoring frame of heart, and an attitude that is willing to learn His ways and unlearn our waywardness.

We are created for intimacy with the Divine. However, we do not always experience that pure connection that drives us to adore and worship Him. Instead, we are easily distracted and may even feel a recurring and haunting sense of incompleteness and gnawing loneliness.

The root of that unbounded, unfulfilled longing is actually the very essence and secret of our spirituality. The solution is inextricably tied to the problem.

Our spiritual psyche, which embodies a marred image of God, has to be healed. That disfigured image is the source and cause for that longing. However, people tend to look for explanations and solutions at the wrong places. They tend to pin that unsatisfied desire to a wishful longing for significance, but seldom their real need to reconnect with God.

So long as we are estranged from our Creator, we are locked in a fruitless search for that elusive sense of well-being. Sometimes in our desperate pursuit for meaningful  companionships, we inevitably grow disenchanted with the very relationships we think could fill that void – our spouse, children, parents, siblings and those we respect.

The reason is simple: no one is perfect, and not even the most accommodating could meet our expectations. The truth is, we have been so captured by the promise that we fail to see the reality of human relationships.

Here is the cyclical irony: those people whom we count on for support and fulfilment cannot offer us what they do not themselves possess. They are incapable for intimacy because they too are estranged from their Creator.

The pathway to true spirituality is straightforward – it is to reconnect with the Spirit of God, so that our fractured psyche could experience transformational healing. Yet that is so difficult to practise because it requires concentration and discipline – to make time for worship.

Worship must be an on-going and life-changing process, not merely a passing event. It must transform us and cause us to conform to the image of Christ. That calls for the cultivation of a godly mindset – shaped through the hearing, studying and meditating of God’s Word. We need reminders and encouragement.

The pulpit ministry is an integral part of worship because its purpose is to:

• remind us of our sacred responsibilities,
• declare God’s love and His heart’s desires,
• celebrate God’s grace and invitation to participate in His divine nature,
• alert us to the world’s and even our own hidden intentions,
• instil within us a profound respect and reverence for God, and
• challenge us to obey and grow deeper into the holiness of heart and life.