Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ''in spirit and in truth.'' Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.
Interpretation
Worship is a committed action rooted in discipline rather than mere emotional experience.
Elisabeth Elliot emphasizes that worship is not just about the feelings we experience but is a conscious act that requires discipline and commitment. True worship is performed 'in spirit and in truth,' meaning it is authentic and sincere, transcending fluctuating emotions and focusing on devotion and integrity.
In practice
During a sermon, to reinforce the importance of intention in worship.
We are not asked to SEE," said Amy. "Why need we when we KNOW?" We know--not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. "It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering?
Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer.
What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the servants offer and had said to him instead, “let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be - let me be a woman'?
Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.
If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.
Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.
As long as you are performing prayer, you are knocking at the door of Allah, and whoever is knocking at the door of Allah, Allah will open it for him.
We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's presence in the power of the Holy Spirit.
With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.
The men to whom Jesus Christ committed the fortunes and destiny of His Church were men of prayer. To no other kind of men has God ever committed Himself in this world.
To great sections of the church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the 'program.' This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.
The likeness of Your Church, O Lord, is that woman who went behind and touched the hem of Your garment, saying within herself: 'If I do but touch His garment I shall be whole' (Mt. 9:21). So the Church confesses her wounds, but desires to be healed.
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