Worship Is Creative
Whatever we adore, idolize, or worship is what we become. When my daughter was young, she idolized a female pop star. She dressed like her, acted like her, and even tried to sing like her. In the process, she was recreating herself; she was becoming the very thing she worshiped.
A spiritual transformation is no different in this regard. By idolizing the beauty, goodness, and truth of a divine Creator, we become beautiful, good, and true ourselves. When we love, adore, and worship spiritual ideals, we eventually become those ideals (Godlike). In every sense, worship is divinely creative.
Worship changes the worshiper into the image of One worshiped.
– Jack W. Hayford
Worship is a loving reverence for a divine being or a supernatural power. It is a humble act of adoration, praise, veneration, devotion, glorification, or exaltation. Worship is an expression of heartfelt love—an affectionate reverence for the eternal Source and all that it represents.
Over the ages, people have worshiped almost anything you can imagine—stones, mountains, trees, animals, the sun, the stars, and even other people. Nature worship is one of the earliest expressions of devotion, which is not surprising considering that early humans, immersed as they were in their natural surroundings, relied heavily on wild animals and plants. And in this unscientific age, natural events, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, thunder, and lightning were inexplicable. Even in the modern era, many afflictions and natural catastrophes are still attributed to “acts of God.”
But nature is not God—and natural disasters are not a form of divine retribution. All things in nature, like all things in the universe, are either products or by-products of the original acts of creation. Worship, in its highest expression, focuses on the Source of all reality, not the manifestations of it. Nevertheless, the beauty of nature can truly inspire us to worship this divine Source.
Perfection is in nature, but nature is not perfect. 9:5.5
– The Urantia Book
Humanity has great spiritual potential, but it has barely wrestled free from the mud of an animalistic swamp. Worship, like prayer, draws on spiritual forces and energies that can lift us far above the self-absorbed desires and unreasonable fears of animal life, taking us to new heights of increasing soul perfection.
Worship Links You to God
In the God experience, worship is the act of linking your superconscious mind with the spirit phase of reality (through your inner Spirit) by being completely devoted to God and the divine way. It is a loving connection with the very Source of light and life, one that harmonizes your thoughts, feelings, and emotions with the reality of the divine nature. It is, indeed, the most powerful technique freely available for your spiritual transfiguration.
While prayer provides nutritional food for the soul and helps to sustain you spiritually, worship is a divinely creative manna that literally transforms you. It is the psychological practice of uniting with God in a dynamic way, making you more like the divinity you adore (see also Prayer – How It Works).
Prayer is spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative. 143:7.5
– The Urantia Book
A worship experience is simple and effortless. It occurs any time you contemplate and venerate the attributes and nature of God or when you ponder and aspire to divine ideals and values. It is a devotional exercise always enhanced by imagining yourself in the immediate presence of God and by having complete faith and trust in divine wisdom and goodness.
Sharing our inner life with God is the beginning of worship. And we can cultivate this worshipful state of mind by attempting to feel the presence and love of God. In this presence, we contemplate the infinity and eternity of God and stand in awe of the magnificence, brilliance, and glory of this majestic Spirit—the loving Source of all things.
Worship is a personal communion with that which is divinely real, with that which is the very source of reality. 196:3.22
– The Urantia Book
Worship is often identified with monotheistic religions, but even nontheistic religions carry an element of worship. Buddhism is one of these and a Buddhist goal, apart from enlightenment, is to be one with the universe, or one with Tao. In principle, this is similar to worship because, as many Buddhist prayers make clear, it includes an adoration of the perfect Buddha and his supreme ways.
In Zen meditation, practitioners not only admire the qualities of Buddhahood, but they also attempt to forget themselves in order to merge with universe consciousness or the wisdom of Tao. This is a meaningful objective similar to that of the God experience, in which worship is the act of forgetting ourselves in order to become unified with the First Source.
Worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole; the finite with the Infinite. 143:7.8
– The Urantia Book
Worship Is Self-Less
Indeed, genuine worship is completely selfless. Unlike prayer, worship asks for nothing and expects nothing in return. We get ourselves out of the way in an act of selfless adoration, an attitude of mind in which we look up to and revere the perfection of God.
While an attitude of true worship is selfless, it has many rewards for the worshiper. Apart from transforming your spiritual nature, it is a source of relaxation, dissolves anxieties, eliminates mental conflicts, enhances powers of reflection, and gives you the ability to perceive ever-deepening meanings and values. Worship fosters wisdom and courage, augments spiritual insight, and inspires the soul.
Through worship, you approach divine realities and begin to see things from a spiritual and cosmic perspective. This, in turn, lends a hand to greater wisdom, increasing self-realization, cosmic consciousness, and God consciousness. Your love for the divine is reflected in your own life through loving service and unselfish devotion to others. These are the acts of a spirit-born soul wholeheartedly dedicated to the worship and love of God.
We worship God first because he is, then because he is in us, and last because we are in him. 16:9.14
– The Urantia Book
There is no need to worry about how you should worship or what you should say. Worship is an attitude of mind—humble admiration and complete trust rather than a string of words—it comes from your heart and soul. All you need to do is to allow your inner Spirit to conduct worship on your behalf. It is effortless adoration.
Worshipful living is guided by truth, beauty, love, and goodness. To begin worship, try imagining and admiring the truth of God, the beauty of God, and the love of God, and then move on to a reverence of the goodness of God (God Consciousness). Give thanks to the spiritual forces in you and all around you and have faith that, by yielding to these good powers, you cannot fail—nothing can stop you. All you have to do is try.
Worship, taught Jesus, makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped. 146:2.17
The Urantia Book
