“He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.’”
~Genesis 22:5

When Abraham spoke about worship he referred to the sacrifice of his one and only son Isaac. He wasn’t talking about some sensational, sentimental, pleasurable ‘evening of worship’ music concert! He was not talking of an evening concert where we all dress nice and cool, and then sit down in a beautiful atmosphere with cool, sentimental, sweet, and enjoyable music – what modern religious folks refer to as worship.

As opposed to the modern notion of worship as a sweet, entertaining evening at a gospel music concert, genuine worship is not entertainment. Sometimes, we actually dub the emotions whipped up in the course of the event as ‘worship experience’; painless, sweet, entertaining experience. Sadly, that’s what we call worship.

To make matters worse, most times we do that at someone else’s expense. An individual puts up a worship event at his own expense. Then the rest of the irresponsible religious folks gather without contributing anything to ‘lift up their hands in worship.’ What a sham! And if you really take time to reflect on what’s going on here, in the light of what we’ve been learning from Abraham, you’ll realize that someone is worshipping, others are not.

You know the one doing the worshipping? The individual who funded the event! It was painful. He spent his hard-earned money. He put in his resources, his facilities; then his time, his energy and sweat; he put in everything. What’s actually happening is that he is expressing his love for God. He goes all out with everything he has: his talent, his voice, his time, his money, and his energy. He uses all of it, brings it to the altar to say, “Lord I love you”. He’s the one worshipping.

Now, compare it with the rest of the people who merely attend the concert, who sincerely think that they are worshipping God. I want you to make that important distinction.