Part 3: When Love Became Worship

"Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."  Genesis 22:5

One of the things that has always fascinated me is the very first time the Bible mentions worship.

If I had been writing the story, I probably would have introduced worship in the tabernacle. With singers. With instruments. With people lifting their hands before the Lord.

But that's not where God introduces it.

The very first mention of worship is found on a mountain... beside an altar. I've often wondered why. Why would God choose this moment to introduce worship?

I don't think that's accidental.

I think He's revealing something beautiful from the very beginning. Perhaps worship has always been much more than a song.

Have We Misunderstood Worship?

For a season at the beginning of my Christian life, I thought of worship primarily as something we did. It was the songs we sang on Sunday mornings. It was the quiet moments when music stirred our hearts. Those moments are beautiful, but over the years I've discovered they were only a glimpse of something much deeper.

Abraham wasn't walking up the mountain to sing. He was walking toward an altar.

Yet he turned to his servants and said,

"We will worship."

He didn't call it sacrifice. He called it worship.

Long before Abraham reached the top of that mountain, something had already been settled in his heart. God was worthy.

Perhaps that's what worship has always been. Not simply music. But love responding to the One who has become our greatest treasure.

While I Was Climbing My Own Mountain

I've often thought about Abraham walking up one side of the mountain with Isaac while, somewhere on the other side, the ram was already making its way up.

Abraham couldn't see it. He had no idea God already had His provision in motion.

Looking back now, I think something very similar was happening in my own life. While I was placing our house on the altar, the Lord was already doing something I couldn't yet see.

At the time, I thought He was asking me to let go of a house. Instead, He was quietly changing my heart. One of the greatest miracles that came from that altar had nothing to do with the house itself.

The Lord literally rescued me from ever wanting a big house again.

For eleven months I had lived in what felt like a model home. Everything had to stay perfect all the time. Looking back, I didn't realize how much of my attention and energy that life demanded until it was gone.

After we lost the house, something surprised me. I remember thinking, I don't even want anyone to make their beds for a month. I didn't care if everything looked perfect anymore.

All I wanted was to slip away to my bedroom, get on my knees, and spend time expressing my love and affection to God. That was all my heart wanted.

Looking back now, I realize that was the miracle I never saw coming.

While I thought I was placing a house on the altar, God was placing something entirely different within my heart.

He was freeing me from the need for things that had quietly captured my affection. He wasn't simply changing my circumstances.

He was changing what I loved.

Worship Is Love Expressed

I don't believe the altar made me love Jesus. It revealed how deeply I did. And as everything else slowly lost its grip on my heart, Jesus became more precious than He had ever been before.

I used to think worship was something I gave to God. Now I see it differently. Worship is what love does when it has seen the true beauty of Jesus.

The more clearly we see His beauty... The more naturally our hearts worship Him. Not because someone tells us to. Not because the music begins. Not because we feel emotional.

But because we've come to know the One our hearts were created for.

Jesus Himself.

Perhaps that's why the first mention of worship is found beside an altar. Because sometimes the greatest miracle isn't what God changes around us. It's what He changes within us.

After all these years, I no longer remember the altars nearly as much as I remember the One I met there.

If there is one thing every altar has taught me, it is this:

Jesus is worthy.

Always.

Completely.

Without reservation.

And once your heart has truly seen His beauty...

Worship is simply what love does.