Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

CASUAL WORSHIP

July 3, 2009

Oh, how the world has changed, and in many ways for the better. My parents still get dressed up to fly on the airlines. "Casual Friday" in the workplace has become casual months. We're so casual, we're casual about God, casual about worship. Churches advertise, "casual worship services."

Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it. Anyone else who approaches it is to be put to death.

-Numbers 1:51 TNIV

Moses leads the people out of Egypt into freedom, yet with freedom came responsibility and order. I'm not here advocating the death penalty for casual worshippers! But note the care Israel placed on worship, how to worship, and approaching God and the holy. Far cry from 2009...often we wander into worship sleepy eyed, and last minute. We prepare for the prom, for a night at the concert hall, but worship..."It's casual, what's the big deal!"

When we are god, we can worship casually. But we are not god. God's self-revelation urges us to prepare carefully to approach God, and to worship. A three-piece suit is not the issue, to be sure. Yet a well-prepared heart, and an alert and faithful mind...that's another matter. Moses instructs the people of God, there's nothing casual about worship.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson