Praise Performance Worship
Jimmy Jividen
10/15/97
Praise Or Performance Worship
True worship is not a performance to please men, but praise to glorify God. Many seem to have forgotten this truth. Churches try to outdo one another in their pageantry, musical performances, and dramatic productions. Their motive seems to be to please men rather than to praise God.
God does not dwell in physical temples. He is not worshipped by human performances, no matter how beautiful, dramatic, or stimulating they might be. God is God. He desires spiritual worship rather than physical performance. Worship should be directed to God rather than man.
God does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He, Himself, gives to all life and breath and all things. Acts 17.24,25
True worship is not reciting a memorized, traditional ritual or listening to a musical performance or watching a dramatic presentation of artistic symbols. All of these things are sensory. Their purpose is to stimulate the senses. Their appeal is to the emotional nature of man. Such activity is man-directed, not God-directed.
True worship involves the inner man—the spirit that wills, the mind that understands, and the heart that feels. No human innovation or stimulation can be substituted. Jesus said:
And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. Matthew 6.5
—Jimmy Jividen
