Worshipping God’s Way – Second Commandment

Worshiping God’s Way

The Second Commandment

Exodus, 20.4, 5; Deuteronomy 5.8, 9

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them…”

We limit God when we do not follow His order of worship.

The fact that God insists on being unseen doesn’t mean that He doesn’t want us to worship Him. Nor does it mean that, precisely because He is unseen, we may do whatever we want, whatever suits us, meets our needs, or feels right, in approaching Him in worship. After all, that’s what pagan idolaters do. God hasn’t given us a manual for worship, with clear outlines and templates to follow each time we come before Him. But He has made it clear, by instruction and inference, what is appropriate for coming before Him in worship. He expects us to put the elements of worship together in a way that provides for a logical and complete experience of worship. We limit God when our worship is incomplete, that is, when, because we rely only on our own view of worship, our worship omits any of the required elements. For example, just about everywhere we see the people of God worshiping Him in Scripture, some aspect of confession of sin is present. The people of God made sacrifices to atone for their sins. Their hymn writers and psalmists wrote psalms to be used in expressing confession and repentance. If it is unacceptable to harbor sin in our daily lives (1 Jn. 1.8) then how much more is it unacceptable to come before the living God in worship with the sins of our past week still clinging to us? If your services of worship have little or no place for confession of sin, then you are limiting the grace and mercy of God by not making space in your worship for these benefits to flow to you from the unseen realm.

Outline your church’s normal order of worship. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest rating), how sure are you that this represents everything God is seeking from us in worship?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.