Day: June 22, 2012

If you have been a believer for very long you have probably heard some people in your church talk about the desirability of Heaven with a certain degree of hesitation, a degree of doubt. These are the brethren who find themselves wondering if the dwelling place of the blessed is some kind of an “eternal worship service”. By this they mean the idea of spending all eternity singing literally endless choruses of hymns before the throne of God as they do for 20 or 30 minutes before a worship band or a choir on a platform on a typical Sunday morning. For some this idea is not yet a very appealing one.

I will not argue here about exactly what Heaven may be besides an eternal worship service. I do wish to submit that, for those who have at any time been caught up into the presence of God through corporate worship in song (or individual worship in song for that matter), such a Heaven isn’t something to dread. It is instead something to be deeply desired, for to feel God’s habitation of His peoples’ adoration, as one of those people, is perhaps the greatest “high” any human being can ever experience in this life. Those who only know boredom during such times simply have not yet been willing or able to truly focus on the One such times are centered around.

I say this not to discourage the believer who has not yet experienced the spiritual delight of worship. I have only begun to more consistently experience this delight myself in the last few years of my own two decades of faith. Many factors can negatively effect being caught up in holy veneration of our Lord and not all of them are our fault. Moreover, if any Christian sincerely purposes in his or her heart to focus on the reality of the divine during times of corporate worship, no matter whether it evokes good feelings or not, those feelings will come eventually. The whole purpose of worship, remember, is to express our deep love and loyalty to the God Who has so loved us. Rapturous feelings of connection with Him are sometimes a wonderful result of loving God in this way, but they are not the object. The object of worship is to honor God’s infinite worth with our wills. In a sense the purpose of worship is worship. It is its own fulfillment.

That said we cannot forget that Heaven is the ultimate place of worship, a place where every earthly barrier to the vital adoration of our Creator has been completely and permanently removed, and for the true child of God, looking forward to this can be a source of sometimes overwhelming joy.

In Heaven the conscious adulation we will know is also the ultimate connection, the ultimate consummation, the absolute perfection of our union with God. In heavenly worship we will be caught up into our Lord as we but tasted when we attempted to focus on Him on Earth. In our present frame we just cannot fully grasp how wondrous this will be. It is the answer to our heart’s truest desire. What could be better than experiencing that which will connect us with Him as nothing else presently can, as nothing else is meant to while we still sojourn on this fallen planet and “see through a glass darkly”? This is what we were born and re-born for! It is our destiny and our purpose. We were made to glorify our Lord and Savior and we will not be truly whole and happy until we can do so in the paradise of His absolute presence in His Son, Jesus Christ, in the place that Son prepares for us.

Remember this the next time you sing in church. Contemplate the ramifications of worship both now and one day in Heaven. Let your mind and heart ponder the goodness of your God as you sing to and for Him. My prayer is that, as you do, the idea of someday entering into an “eternal worship service” will become a source of joyful expectancy, no longer something to mistakenly dread.