REVERENCE
Reverence is not a subject that even those
who claim to be Christians talk about much any more. In the pursuit of “raucous worship,” silence
and meditation have fallen into disuse.
Some are more interested in exciting dramas, clapping hands, and
whooping it up (for the Lord, of course) than they are in thinking and reflecting
about the Creator of the universe. Man
has made God in his image and in this era is not really into: “Be still and
know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).
The Second College
Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary
defines reverence as “a feeling of
pro-found awe and respect and often love” and later adds the idea of actions
accompanying that “feeling.” These
elements comprise what is meant by reverence. When one thinks of the great power that God
possesses, how is it possible not to
stand in awe? Every amazing feat that
man has ever done pales by comparison to what the Almighty has
accomplished. We have but figured out now how to use parts of His creation for
our own benefit; He put all of the resources here for us to use at the very
beginning! We have not invented or
discovered anything that He did not already know.
Respect should follow from a
consideration of His power, but it also comes from a realization of His very
nature. His love, benevolence, kindness,
holiness, justice, mercy, and forgiveness could not have been invented by
man. We know the importance of all these
attributes, and we could not have invented anyone this perfect. God always
does right. He does not act out of petty
motives, as we do. We respect His
fairness.
Love is due to God for Who He is and
what He does. “We love Him because He
first loved us” (1 John
Our reverence for
God should be demonstrated in our worship, the preparation for which should
begin the evening before by getting enough sleep. Some have been known to say, “I just can’t
get up in time,” which merits the response, “What time are you going to sleep?”
Certainly it is difficult to arise by
One should arrive for worship—not in a fit of
haste—with worldly concerns dominating one’s thoughts, but with spiritual
matters uppermost in one’s mind. With
adequate rest one should arrive on time, preferably a few minutes early
(especially if teaching). Is it reverence
to enter the class or assembly during a song, prayer, or during the teaching
and preaching? Sometimes unusual
circumstances arise (especially with small children), but in many congregations,
people filter in consistently from one to twenty minutes late.
Prior to worship,
should we not be thinking about the worship of God we will be offering
Him? Fellowship with each other is
important, but frequently we are so noisy that some do not hear anything until
about the third announcement. We have
plenty of time to visit when the assembly has been dismissed. Usually, there is a Bible text to ponder, and
it would not hurt any of us to be seated a couple of minutes before we begin to
think and meditate.
Our reverence for
God ought to be reflected in the way we treat one another, since we have all
been made in His image and bought by the blood of Christ. It should also be displayed in our daily
living. How can we speak and act like
those in the world during the week and then expect that God will accept our
“reverence” on the first day of the week?
We ought also to have times of daily reverence, in which we study and
call on the name of our God in prayer.
Always His name and that of Jesus should be profoundly respected. Reverence should be part of our Christian
outlook.
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