Ignorant of the very thing you worship

It is actually physically uncomfortable to watch or be part of worship when the singers/band do not reach out to God with their spirits while they worship. You can feel it. It's.. flat..dead. I start squirming in my seat.  And, no matter how hard I try on my own to just worship God irrespective of what's going on in the service, the fact is I am still very influenced by it.

Matthew 15:8-9
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’

Why does this happen?  Why do people who profess to love and want to worship God not really worship Him then?  I can give you a reason - It's hard to worship God if you don't really love Him, but actually just feel it's your duty, or worse,  fear Him.  

Acts 17, verse 23 talks about worshiping a God you don't know, a God you are ignorant about.  I feel this is sadly what happens in so many churches, or even happens in the hearts of Christians.

You're not going to love God if you don't know Him. You're not going to get know Him by obeying the rules, and doing or saying the right thing. He's not about rules.  Got that? He is NOT ABOUT RULES, no matter how much your pastor preaches on sin, preaches on how you fall short, preaches on how you better stop doing this or that and get in line. God is about relationship. He is about love. He is about drawing you with kindness.

When do you feel love for someone? Isn't it when they accept you unconditionally, love you, care for you, look out for you, are positive and fun?

So why do we think God is like, completely the opposite of the above! That He doesn't accept us, love us, care for us, look out for us. That He's not positive or *gasp* fun?

Just read this, from that dusty book Deuteronomy that we all usually avoid like the plague..

In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.
The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.
He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields.
He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag,
with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats,
with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat.
You drank the foaming blood of the grape.
(Deut 32:10-14)

Start thinking about love, about God. Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 .. would a God like that not be worth getting to know... learning to love?

And then, when your heart is overflowing with that love for God..guess what happens? * drum roll please* Yup, you guessed right! True worship!