How Awesome Is This Place

Gilbert Kerrigan, Lafayette, IN 11/07
Thu Jul 10 11:13:19 MST 2008

 Then Jacob arose from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.
He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place!
This is none  other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17) 

               Worship is homage. It is an attitude and activity designed to recognize and describe the worth of God. I believe that Jacob worshiped God when he made the statement, “How awesome is this place!” As it did with Jacob, the presence of God always brought forth worship. Matthew tells us that when the Magi saw Mary with baby Jesus they “bowed down and worshiped him” (Matt. 2:11). That was a common scene all throughout the Bible. In the presence of the Lord, many would fall to the ground and worship Him.

            Worship is a verb. It is action. The Bible includes a wide range of actions involved in worship, including bowing down, lifting hands, clapping hands, dancing, processions and singing. All these actions were intended to express and recognize the worth of God. These actions were all motivated by an attitude. It was an outward expression of what they were feeling deep inside themselves. They were not keeping a checklist of ways to worship in order to check each one off the list as they completed the action. They couldn’t help but do those things. Those actions were expressions of the way they felt.

            For far too long we have boxed up worship and confined it to a few simple acts in some man-made building. Yes, worship is singing, praying, taking the Lord’s Supper, giving and opening God’s Word, but worship is so much more than that. It isn’t limited to those things. It is a life lived in awe of God and His glory. As Paul wrote, it is offering our bodies as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1). That should happen daily in our lives. Our lives should scream out, ”Worthy is the Lamb!” Worship is a life that realizes the presence of the Lord in its life daily and says, “How awesome is this place!”