Worship Is Divinely 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 principle. When we idolize the beauty, goodness, and truth of a divine Creator, we become beautiful, good, and true ourselves. When we love, adore, and revere 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 humble act of adoration, praise, or veneration. It is a heartfelt love and affectionate reverence for the Eternal Source and all that he represents. But it was not always this way. People worship many things.
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 at the time, 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.
– 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 carry us far above the mire of self-absorbed desires and unreasonable fears, taking us to new heights of increasing soul perfection.
Worship Links You to God
In the God experience, worship is the act of linking the superconscious mind with the Spirit of God within us. Our adoration of God is a state of mind that allows us to make a loving connection with the very Source of light and life, a connection that harmonizes our thoughts, feelings, and emotions with the divine nature. It is, indeed, the most powerful technique freely available for our spiritual transformation.
While prayer provides nutritional food for the soul and helps to sustain us spiritually, worship is a divinely creative manna that literally recreates us. It is the psychological practice of uniting with God in a dynamic way, making us more like the divinity we adore (see also Prayer – The Breath of Life).
Prayer is spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative.
– The Urantia Book
A worship experience is simple and effortless. It occurs any time we contemplate and venerate the attributes and nature of God, or when we ponder and aspire to divine ideals and values. It is a devotional exercise always enhanced by imagining ourselves in the immediate presence of God while having complete faith and trust in divine wisdom and goodness.
Sharing the inner life with God is the beginning of our intimate relationship with the divine Presence. And we 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, we 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.
– The Urantia Book
Worship Is Self-Less but Beneficial
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.
– The Urantia Book
Indeed, genuine worship is completely selfless. Unlike prayer, it asks for nothing and expects nothing in return. We get ourselves completely out of the way. It is our act of selfless adoration, an attitude of mind in which we look up to and revere the perfection of God in all ways and all things.
Nonetheless, while an attitude of true worship is selfless, it has many rewards for the worshiper. Apart from transforming our spiritual natures, it’s a source of relaxation, dissolves anxieties, eliminates mental conflicts, enhances our powers of reflection, and gives us the ability to perceive ever-deepening meanings and values. Worship fosters wisdom and courage, augments spiritual insight, and inspires the soul.
Through worship, we 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.
Our love for the divine is then reflected in our own lives through loving service and unselfish devotion to others. These are the acts of a spirit-born soul wholeheartedly dedicated to the love of God.
We worship God first because he is, then because he is in us, and last because we are in him.
– The Urantia Book
There is no need to worry about how we should worship or what we should say. There is no correct way to worship. More so, it’s an attitude of mind—our humble admiration and complete trust in a perfect God rather than a string of words—it comes from our hearts and souls. All we need to do is consciously allow the inner Spirit to conduct worship on our behalf. It is effortless adoration.
We could begin by imagining and admiring the truth of God, the beauty of God, and the love of God, and then move on to a reverence for the goodness of God. We could also give thanks to the spiritual forces in us and all around us. Throughout it all, we have faith that, by yielding to these good powers, we cannot fail—nothing can stop us. All we have to do is try.
Worship, taught Jesus, makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped.
The Urantia Book
