Introduction

Worship according to Websters Dictionary:

1. Chiefly and eminently, the act of paying divine honours to the
Supreme Being; or the reverence and homage paid to him in
religious exercises, consisting in adoration, confession,
prayer, thanksgiving and the like. The worship of God is an
eminent part of religion. Prayer is a chief part of religious
worship.
2. The homage paid to idols or false gods by pagans. Idolatry of lovers; obsequious or
submissive respect.
3. To adore; to pay divine honours to; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration.
Thou shalt worship no other God. Exo 34. To respect; to honour; to treat with civil reverence.
4. To honour with extravagant love and extreme submission; as a lover. (With bended knees I
daily worship her).
What is true worship? Soft slow music while I focus on YHVH with my eyes closed, hands
raised, praising Him, following the words of the song. This is what most people think when
they are asked about hat worship is. I was brought up in a Church that describes worship as
prayers and singing slow songs. The faster songs are known as praise and the slower
songs as Worship. But is this what is really meant in the Scripture when we read worship in
the Hebrew mindset?

Worship is at the very heart of Greek culture. Many great colosseums were built to
accommodate the throngs of worshippers gathered to idolize and revere the gods. These
gatherings were thought to please the gods and cause them to cast favour upon the people.
Different gods were worshipped for different reasons in that each god was hovering over a
different aspect of the world. Songs were sung, instruments were played, and nude dancing
was common. Singing songs, playing, and dancing to the gods was worshipping, and this
worship is what unified the people. It was the state of mind that the gods were
interested in.
The Stoics however, would have nothing to do with this kind of activity.
Worship to them was equally a state of mind, however, a proper state of mind
does not succumb to the writhing pleasures of the body. The Greek concept of
worship, (proskuneo), was seen as a specific act of reverence or homage.

Modern worship is also seen from the Greek point of view. People worship once a week on
Sunday morning and worship is a single event that has a specific time slot. It has a start time
and an end time and form part of the customary program preceded by announcements and
followed by the sermon. Professional praise and worship teams lead the people in worship
and you can sing along or only listen if you like. When the weekly, mundane, cares of the
world go through their cycle, then Praise and Worship begins again with the next Sunday
morning. Sun-day worship? Sun-worship?
ets look at an example of how Abraham worshipped. We will portray him in the same
way an extreme modern western church would worship today:

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It is a bit extreme but this actually happens in some churches today and they experience
YHVH and express themselves in worship in this way. Is this true worship and is this what we
learn from the example where Abraham encountered YHVH? We will later look at the same
passage in Genesis to see how Abraham approached and worshipped YHVH.
To the western mind, that is us, worshipping is an event and not part of the daily lifestyle.
When the event was over both the worshipers and the worshipped were pleased and content
and they go away, back to their normal lives, doing what pleases them. We have this mindset
and understanding of worshipping YHVH as well. We too worship YHVH with a Greek
mindset.

orship according to Scripture is found in various characters like

Abraham, David and the First Century Believers. We will now look
at Abraham as an example to see how he worshipped YHVH.
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Abrahams whole approach is based upon serving. He has a humble attitude and saw himself
as a servant of YHVH. He was more ready to serve than to cloud the event with feelings. His
main purpose was to serve these three men so that he can find favour in their eyes. We read
in verse 2 he ran to meet them and bow down to the ground. The phrase to bow down to to
ground is the Hebrew word shachah that means - to depress, that is, prostrate
(especially reflexively in homage to royalty of YHVH): - bow (self) down, crouch, fall
down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop,
worship. It is a sign of Abrahams humility and respect for YHVH as a servant would bow
down before a great King.
We on the other hand see YHVH as our Mate and our Buddy and we would have probably
ran and give YHVH a hug. Abraham saw himself and YHVH in a different way than we see
YHVH and ourselves today and we have a lot to learn about humility and respect towards
YHVH our King.
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We do not want to search the old paths and walk in it, we rather conform to a modern Greek
way of worship that is based on good feelings and nice music. Abraham knew what worship
was and he probably learned from Shem because he was well aware of YHVHs
Commandments even before Moses time.
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This was one of the most important aspects of true worship; to obey YHVHs Voice and to
keep His Commandments and His Torah. In the Hebrew culture the word avodah is
understood as service, worship, or servitude. The Temple service was called The Avodah.
Avodah comes from he root word Avad that means; servant, to work, to create, to
make and worshipers. To work and to worship is the same concept in the Hebrew culture
and you worship YHVH while you work. It is a continual process that never stops and you are
constantly busy worshipping YHVH by abiding in His Commandments while you do
something. This is quite a contrast of our western view on worship that is a weekly event that
stops the moment the music stops.

servant of YHVH is a worshipper of YHVH, and worship is a continuous act. Worship

was intimately tied to work or service as we saw in the example with Abraham. When
you go to work, you should see it as going to worship and serve YHVH. You are
worshipping YHVH when you tend to your wife and childrens needs. You cannot
separate out ordinary daily activities from your service to YHVH, for they are one and
the same. So, whatever you do, you must approach it with the attitude and motivation of
service to YHVH.
In Hebrew thought, all occupations are holy and sacred, and they are to be observed as such.
One might ask, "So then is a bartender a holy and sacred occupation?" The answer is no.
Well I thought you just said that all occupations are holy! That'
s right! But to a true believer, a
bartender is not an occupation.
When everything you set out to do is understood to be worshipping YHVH your perspective
changes dramatically. With this new perspective it is strange to think that you only worship
YHVH for maybe one to two hours a week and afterwards go to your secular life doing your
own thing separated from worship. I have heard of Observant Jews who are quite shocked
when they heard how Christian worship. They say that Christians have a part time God that
is only worshipped once a week. They also learned that what goes on inside the walls of the
Church building is not practiced outside of Church and vice versa. Many would also have no
problem in kneeling and praying inside the walls of the assembly, but would not be caught
dead doing that at work or somewhere else.

ost of us come from the Western background, from a

Western culture and have learned to think with a
western mindset. We need to understand the
Hebrew culture and get a Hebrew mindset, to worship
YHVH, the Hebrew God, the way He wants to be
worshipped. Most people today worship YHVH the way they
prefer and try to please Him with the things they like.
Let me use an example to illustrate this point. It is your dads
birthday and you really want to surprise him with a special
gift because you love him very much. You go out to the
shops and find the coolest baggy pants and T-Shirt with a
trendy slogan on the front. This is so cool and you love it and
decided to give this to your dad as a present.
The morning of his birthday you got up early and presented him with a smile and the gift. His
face lit up when he saw you and he was very pleased to see you and opened the giftwrapping. His face fell and he forged a smile trying to hide his disappointment. You saw his
face and cannot understand why he doesnt like his present. You love him so much and
bought him the best present you could find, but the reality is; YOU BOUGHT HIM A
PRESENT YOU LIKE AND DO NOT KNOW HIM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HE
WANTS. What you did was very noble, but it was not pleasing your father.
In the same way we give gifts of worship to our Father and we do not know Him well enough
to know what He wants and how He wants to be worshipped. To rectify this, we have to take
a step back and learn what our Father likes and what He dislikes and then present Him with
Gifts that are well pleasing in His sight, because we love Him.
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e can only worship the Father in truth if we have the truth of Who He is and what He
commanded and what He likes and what He despises. At this point in time, millions of
people worship YHVH the same way they worship sport, rock and pop stars and
celebrities. These are forms of Greek mindset worship and the Father do not want to be
treated like a Greek god and honoured in the same way we honour our idols.
We honour YHVH with a mixture of pagan symbols and traditions and expect Him to accept
our worship. We are self centred and care more about what other people say than to worry
about what our Father said.

How are we supposed to worship our Father? What does He like?

Worship is the highest form of expressing your love, respect, adoration, thankfulness,
reverence and awe towards YHVH. He gave us His Word and in His Word we find His
Character and Who He is and what He expect from us. We worship Him when we find out
what He said and do what He instructed us to do.
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True worship is obedience; obedience to YHVHs Commandments and His Commandments

is truth. This is the highest form of love we can express if we are obedient to Him with a
humble servant attitude, just like Abraham. A loving relationship with YHVH is about serving
and if you try to see what you can get out of your relationship with YHVH, then you are still
immature and needs to grow up spiritually.

dol worship: YHVH hates Idol worship. An idol is anything you place above Him. There
are two types of Idols in our lives today; physical idols as in things and spiritual idols as
in religion. Physical idols can be sport, entertainment, friends, things, gadgets, food,
alcohol, sex, cars, money, etc. We live in a Capitalistic Western society and we are
bombarded with advertisements to uplift our lifestyles and attain material things that are not
needs. YHVH never made us to see how much stuff we can gather in our lifetime; He made
us to worship Him, not things.
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You cannot say you worship YHVH when your main goal in life is to have
the best of everything; you are actually worshipping mammon or material
things. If you truly worship YHVH you will put Him first and peruse Him and
His Will and not worldly things like the rest of the world.
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If something causes you to stumble, cut it out of your life so that your soul may be saved.
Yshua told the rich young man to sell everything he had and follow Him; we should be
content with what we have and not covet riches that will cause us our salvation.
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A Kingdom has a King and a King has Rules. If you live in His Kingdom, or any kingdom for
that matter, you have to obey that Kings rules or Laws and live by them. If you do not honour
the rules of the Kingdom, you are not honouring the King. Seek first the Kingdom and abide
by its Rules and then the King shall look after you and provide in your needs, not your wants.
piritual Idols or Religion: YHVH hates religion and man made doctrines. Many people
connect the word religion to following the Commandments of YHVH as found in the
Torah, and they say you are legalistic if you obey the Torah. Religion is made up of
man-made doctrines and laws and customs that is contradictory to YHVHs Word. The first
people responsible for enforcing religion were the Pharisees. They corrupted the Word of
YHVH by adding their own commandments to fence off YHVHs Commandments so that
they wouldnt break it. This caused man to follow man-made rules instead of YHVHs
Commandments.

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The Jews documented their man-made oral traditions and commandments in

the Talmud, and the Christians documented their man-made doctrines in
thousands of Christian Books. Christians read more religious books and
opinions of man that they read the Scripture. Catholicism is totally in another
class; they based their man-made traditions and their religion on paganism,
mixing it with YHVHs Word. All three of these are an abomination in the
eyes of YHVH and man made traditions and instructions needs to be taken
out of the true worship of YHVH. If you follow a man made doctrine, then you
are worshipping man.

e worship YHVH by studying and confessing His Torah.

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We worship YHVH if we read and study His Torah, confess the Word and praise YHVH for
His infinite wisdom found in the Torah. The word confess used here is the Hebrew word
yadah that means to shoot out arrows and that is similar to the root word yarah,
the root word for Torah, that means to learn how to shoot. We shoot our arrows of the
Word to hit the targets bulls eye every time. Sin on the other hand is the word chatah
that means to miss the mark. We need the Torah to learn how to shoot the arrows of His
Word in order to hit the mark every time and not sin.
To worship YHVH is to keep His Torah and not to learn the ways of the nations serving other
gods by doing their customs and following their traditions.
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orship is associated with keeping YHVHs Torah and you serve YHVH by obeying His
Torah. This is an ongoing process that never stops and is the highest form of
worship we can give our Father and King.
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We worship YHVH by obeying His Sabbath and the Feast Days or His appointed times. This
form of worship goes hand in hand with obeying the Torah, but we worship YHVH as a Body
during these appointed times.
nother way of worship is through prayer and thanks giving, acknowledging
YHVHs greatness verbally.
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This event is where Abrahams servant went out to look for a wife for Isaac. When he found
her he worshipped YHVH by acknowledging Him for the outcome and he and gave YHVH
thanks. The word for worship is the word shachah that is used and means to show
reverence and to show respect towards YHVH. This is an intimate form of worship through
prayer.
orship and praising YHVHs Name for all the goodness He has done,
expressed in song.
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Worship in prayer or in song is found within the frame of our ultimate worship,
namely to obey YHVHs Commandments. To sing praises unto YHVH is only a
expression of worship but it is not the only and highest way of worship as people
seem to believe today.
I have listed all the different forms of worship and ranked them from the greater to the lesser.
They are all important but we should take note of the higher forms of worship because we
normally tend to neglect it the most:
1. Obeying YHVHs Torah in order to avoid sin. Continual
2. Studying and knowing YHVH Torah. Few hours a day and on Sabbaths and on
Feast Days
3. Confessing His Word and praising YHVH for His Word Daily (personal) When you
congregate (Sabbaths and Feast days and prayer meetings)
4. Obeying and Celebrating YHVHs Sabbaths and Feast days Sabbaths & Feast days
5. Worship through prayer and thanksgiving and praising YHVH Daily (personal)
Whenever you congregate as a Body.
6. Worship through song, singing praises to YHVH. Similar to prayer. - When you
congregate (Sabbaths and Feast days and prayer meetings)

Worship is our gift back to YHVH and may we make sure that we present gifts that are
pleasing and acceptable to YHVH, all the time. Remember you are the servant whose job it is
to worship the King of Kings. Worship is an attitude that starts with humility.