The Importance of Worship in the New Year

Learn what it means to worship God and why it is important.




What is Worship?

11 “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created
everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.”
– Revelation 4:11 (NLT 1st edition)
37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.”
– Matthew 22:37-38 (NIV)
So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a
living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer.
– Romans 12:1 (GNB)

Worship is your response to God’s love

Worship is giving back to God

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
– Mark 12:30 (NCV)

God wants you to love Him thoughtfully

God wants you to love Him passionately

God wants you to love Him practically



What is Worship?
1. Worship is focusing your attention on God
You have looked deep into my heart, LORD, and you know all about me. You know when I am resting or when I am working, and from heaven, you discover my thoughts. You notice everything I do and everywhere I go.
– Psalm 139:1-3 (CEV)
Focusing on yourself is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, and ends up thinking more about self than God.
– Romans 8:7 (Message)
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.
– Romans 12:2a (Message)
Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace.
– Matthew 6:6 (Message)
Sing praise to the Lord; tell the wonderful things He has done. Be glad that we belong to Him; let all who worship Him rejoice. God to the Lord for help; and worship Him continually.
– Psalm 105:2-4 (GNB)
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
– Isaiah 26:3 (NLT)
What is Worship?
2. Worship is expressing your affection to God
19 We love Him, because He first loved us.
– 1 John 4:19 (AMP)
I don’t want your sacrifices I want your love; I don’t want your offerings I want you to know me.
– Hosea 6:6 (LB)
14 You must worship no other god’s, but only the Lord, for He is a God who is passionate about His relationship with you.
– Exodus 34:14 (NLT 1st edition)
Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness, to be used for sinning, Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body as tool to do what is right for the glory of God.
– Romans 6:13 (NLT 1st edition)
What is Worship?
3. Worship is using your abilities for God
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for men.
– Colossians 3:23 (GNB)
23 In all the work you are doing, work the best you can. Work as if you were doing it for the Lord, not for people.
– Colossians 3:23 (NCV)
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
– Romans 12:1-2
Trust in the LORD and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust Him, and He will help you.
– Psalm 37:3-5 (NLT)
So our aim is to please Him always in everything we do.
– 2 Corinthians 5:9

Things to Remember:

  • You were made for God.