Several years ago, I read a book entitled, The Unquenchable Worshipper: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship, by Matt Redman. I was impressed by this little book and subsequently wrote a series of devotions for my own reflection on its themes. Here is the fourth devotion I wrote. I hope it blesses you. (BTW I maintained the author’s spelling of “worshipper” because he is English and that is how the English spell the word. It also makes me look cosmopolitan.)
The Undignified Worshipper…is so focused on God that he finds himself lost in the grandeur of the King. This worshipper is so lost in his worship of God and so on fire with praise that it burns right through any inhibitions or pride that he may have. True worshippers always forget themselves. As a friend once said about this lostness in the adoration of God, “I was so focused on Jesus I forgot to remember where I was.” Another has wisely understood this when he said, “The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook, because our lives are so taken up with Him.”
This worshipper is so caught up in love and wonder that he forgets what others might think and throws himself into God’s pleasure. In Jesus we see the Heavenly Father loves us with an extravagant abandon. Passionate, undignified worship is our only reasonable response. This is a total giving of self, without calculation, without weighing the personally perceived cost, without even a second thought, except to please the One who made us. This may be perceived as foolish; as foolish as the woman bathing Jesus with costly perfume, or as foolish as the woman washing His feet with her own tears and drying them with her hair, or as foolish as believing in a God we have never seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor spoken with, nor apprehended in any other tangible way.
This worshipper, without care for reputation or status, knows the sense of extreme worship, in total abandonment to God. Just like King David of old who danced before the Lord wearing nothing but an ephod saying to his wife who derided him, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” (2 Samuel 6:21,22)
Prayer:
O God, bring us to this place, worshippers and worship leaders alike, where we are so caught up in loving You that we care very little about our own status or reputation, where we so find You in worship that we lose ourselves in wonder, love and praise.
In Christ’s name. Amen.
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