Give It All

1 Peter 5:5b-7 (NKJV) Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

 

This past Sunday during our worship I heard someone say something to the effect of, "Now it's time to push everything that's going on in your life aside and just focus on God and worship Him."  While that sounds like great advice I think it kind of misses the mark of what worship is about.  True worship is giving everything to God.  When I hold on to my issues, my problems, my plans, my dreams, my desires, my anxieties, my cares... when I push them aside only to go back to them in an hour or later that day, I'm missing the point of what God wants from me.  He wants my everything.

 

When I push things aside in order to "focus on God" what I'm really telling God is that I can take care of these other things without Him or worse yet, I don't want Him involved in areas of my life that I want to deal with myself.  That's pride.

 

Part of worship is surrendering everything to Him.

 

I don't want to deal with issues without His wisdom.  I don't want my problems without His solutions.  I don't want to have plans without Him planning them.  I don't want to dream what He hasn't given me to dream.  I don't want to desire what He hasn't placed in my heart to desire.  I don't want to be anxious when He has said, "do not be anxious about anything..." Philippians 4:6 (ESV).  I don't want to care about what He doesn't want me to care about.  All my thoughts, all my feelings, all my emotions I want to be from Him and for Him.  I don't want His resistance... I need His grace.

 

Worship, true worship, is being all in.  It's striving for holiness by giving Him absolute control.  True worship is laying everything down at the feet of the One who is my Everything.

 

I love the way The Message paraphrases 1 Peter 5:7.  It says, "Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you."

 

I can be carefree in my worship, because He is careful of my life!