When you think about worship, you can have a lot of different thoughts about it. For me personally, I believe worship is when you praise God for everything that He is currently doing in your life. Worship is an act of something that you regularly do.
Worship is an act of praise to the Lord for everything that He is doing in your life. Worshipping God can be done both privately and publicly. Worshipping is usually done with music, but it can be done with various other things as well. Worship usually opens up a church service before the preacher starts preaching. Depending on the church, worship will be led by an orchestra and choir or sometimes it will be led by a band. We often think of worship as praising God with music, but you can worship God through prayer and simply reading the Bible or in other words, reciting some Bible verses that praise God! Simply just thanking God through prayer is an act of worship, because we need to thank Him for the things He has given us and what He is doing in our lives.
I believe that worship is something that a lot of people do not take seriously or even do anymore. Most people believe that it is just singing songs and playing music. It is not just that! Worshipping God can be convicting at times, because of how powerful the lyrics are and how the lyrics make you realize how awesome God is while you are worshipping. I think that when we worship, we should have our hearts directed toward God and not of ourselves so we can give all of our heart to the Lord while we worship. To have our minds toward Christ and not of ourselves while we worship can make a difference in our walk with Him because we are focusing on Him and not what is going to happen in the next day or so.
Another thing about worship is that people typically lift their hands up or move their hands around as a form of worship while singing. This just signifies you are depending on God for your strength, guidance, peace, and whatever you are singing about at the time. You do not have to lift your hands during worship if you feel uncomfortable or if you do not feel like that is the right thing to do. I know several people who do not raise their hands during worship, and they love the Lord in everything that they do. Some people also lift their hands while praying.
To worship God is a privilege and we need to take every time we can to worship our God. God created everything that is here on this earth, so why would we not want to worship Him and thank Him for everything that He has given us and done for us in our lives? Psalms 100:4-5 says, "Enter His gates with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For Yahweh is good, and His love is eternal; His faithfulness endures through all generations." These two verses sum up the reason why we, as Christians, should worship God. Not just because we want to, but because we should give thanks to Him and praise Him for everything He has given us and everything He is doing in our lives.
I have realized lately that worship has put my heart closer to the Lord. When you worship the Lord and you worship Him with all of your heart and not just some of it, God will change your life just by that. Just meditating on some lyrics from some songs is another way of growing closer to the Lord. Most of the time, we just sing the songs thinking we may know what the meaning of them are, but in reality, we really do not know what the lyrics are talking about. I hope this gives you a better insight on why we should worship our God publicly and privately whenever we have the chance.
