The Heart of Worship

Prayer 1Blog 1 – 2/29/16                             The Heart of Worship
The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty. Psalm 93:1      

 Don McDaniel’s Comments :  

What is the purpose and worth of worship?  What is worship for you?

As a Christian, worship is recognizing and honoring our Creator and Savior and Sustainer.  Worship is acknowledging and honoring and respecting God’s Majesty and showing reverence to Him.  God is worthy of our worship and has designed us for that purpose.  Is it because He has a big ego and needs our praise?  NO!!   Truth is you and I are a lot like cameras without film.  We notice and remember what we are looking at and quickly forget and are distracted by what else gets our attention.  Children are a lot like that but we too often are like that too.  Whatever draws their attention causes them to forget about what had their attention.  However, God did design us with the capability to communicate with and be in fellowship with Him and worship helps us keep our attention on Him.    Stop and think about it.  The creator and eternal God is ruler and sustainer of everything from eternity past to eternity future.  There is nothing He doesn’t know but is able to communicate personally with everyone at the same time with His full wisdom and personal attention.  I commonly say I can do one thing well or a few things poorly or a lot terribly or not at all.  But God can do everything perfectly at the same time.  Aren’t you glad for that?  What would it be like if you and I had to make an appointment to talk to Him or if our talk with Him had to be cut short for Him to manage a crisis somewhere.  What a precious privilege it is to be able to pray to Him any time we want for as long as we want or need and anywhere knowing He is already there waiting available with great interest.  When we feel there is a wall between us and Him, it is a wall we put up and not one He built.

What would the world be like if He was distracted by other priorities like we often are?   Well, how often do we allow less important distractions draw us from spending quality time with wife or children or with our church family or with CHRIST?    How often do we put off time we need to spend with Him because we have more urgent things to address?  

Worship is a precious privilege that allows us to enter His presence expressing love and honor and respect He so deserves.  What does worship do for us? 

  1. It opens a channel He can and does speak to us through. 
  2. It reminds us who He is and how fragile and dependent we are on Him.
  3. It strengthens our faith in Him by hearing and reminding ourselves what He has done and continues to do.
  4. It gives us a better understanding and capability to love Him.
  5. It helps us put others cares into perspective and opens us to receive wisdom and insights we need to make wise choices and manage our lives in a more Christ like manner.
  6. Worship is a prayerful attitude but more than just communicating with God. 

 The list could go on and on because worship is a living and growing expression God created for us to experience and express which God intended to be a vital part of each Christian’s prayers and devotions. 

  1. Worship includes praise and expressions of thanksgiving. 
  2. It includes remembering all He has done for us and those we care about.
  3. It also opens us to see others, including those we don’t like, the way He does.
  4. It includes singing songs and hymns that give Him honor and praise.
  5. Worship should be done both with other Christians as well as alone in private.
  6. Worship also includes being silent and open with our minds and hearts seeking Him.

Again, worship is much more but the above lists but hopefully will stimulate and spur you (and me) to expand our worship time and expectations.

 Setting time aside to pray and read scripture and express direct praise and worship directly to Him is essential to establishing and maintaining our faith.  I would encourage you to stop and think about those you know who reflect a Christ like character.  I dare say they express praise and worship well when they sing and pray.  What is most noticeable and what habits do they have that reinforces their faith and character?  I would also encourage you to ask them too.  

 We are all unique but I’m sure you will find common threads to their response.  They will have a daily vital relationship with Christ and express praise and worship and spend focused time with Him daily and often many times during the day.  I dare say you will find their bibles worn and well used and many passages underlined or marked. You will also find their relationship with Christ to be as real and exciting to them as with anyone you and I can see and talk to.

 There are many in my life who are or have been good examples for me.  But I’m finding my best examples have already gone on to glory but their memories and influence still impact me greatly.  How about you?   Expressing gratitude to God for their influence and seeking His help to follow their example is a very good way of worshiping and honoring Him too.  We need examples close to us to follow but our best example is Christ example Himself.  His example is more than words in a ancient book but a living example Who becomes real to us as we spend time talking to and praying to Him as well as study the Bible and praising Him. 

 If we are indeed living in the last days before Christ returns, we will face increasingly dangerous times and increasing persecution for our faith.  There is no better place to prepare for an uncertain future than in the arms of the One who made and continues to care for us.  It will be even more important that we be the example to others that those Christian examples before us were.     

Published by donsdevotions

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Don McDaniel - Who am I? Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever. Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me. I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private. However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool. Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry. He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 . I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine. I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward. Don & Arlene McDaniel In His Service, Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951 If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ ) You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.

2 thoughts on “The Heart of Worship”

  2. To God be all the glory and honor. he knows the end before the beginning and thus the best place to invest the unknown.He has overcome the world by the death and resurrection of His son Jesus Christ. amen and amen.

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