Cultivate a Life of Worship 

Having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. --Mark 1:35 

“Worship is something we do. Studying the theology of worship and debating the forms of worship are all good, but by themselves they are inadequate. In the final analysis we learn to worship by worshiping.”

Willingly offer yourself to the Lord as an instrument for worship. Learn to let go of your agenda, your concerns, your being blessed, and your hearing of the Word of God. The language of the gathered fellowship is not “I,” but “we.” Surrender to the ways of God; submit to others in the Christian fellowship; desire that God’s life will rise up in the group, not just within you. Seek to become of one mind, of one accord. Cultivate a life of complete spiritual dependency—completely dependent upon God for anything significant to happen. The work is God’s and not yours. Start this by praying before you doing anything; invite the Lord’s presence, blessing, and guidance. Then give Him all the credit for anything good that happens.

Guard yourself from exposure to harmful influences that will kill worship. Cultivating worship also involves dealing with all the weeds that grow and choke the growth of your crop, as well as the pests that try to steal the harvest. For example, some of us are in the high-risk category for skin cancer. So what should we do? We should stay away from exposure to those deadly UV rays. Since all of us are prone to soul cancer that eats away at our worship, we should avoid having a lot of exposure to TV rays because they distract, deaden, and deflate the welling up of our souls in worship to God! If you cannot fast from TV, newspapers, and magazines for even a week, then you are a very weak Christian, and at risk spiritually.

Part of learning to cultivate worship is learning how to drown out distractions through prayers of gratefulness to God. Rather than feeling that distractions somehow deter us from worshiping God, we should learn to simply receive whatever happens at home, in a gathered worship experience, or other places of private worship, as God tests our spirit. Grumbling and complaining cannot be successfully partnered with a spirit of adoration and worship! 

The Fruits of Worship
 
Let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. --Hebrews 13:15   
 
Did you know that there will be many times that you will not “feel” like worshiping? Perhaps you have had so many disappointing experiences in the past that you think it is hardly worth it because there is such a low sense of the power of God. Even so, you still need to offer the sacrifice of worship to God.

The sacrifice of worship gets offered to God himself. It is vital that you join other saints to amplify your worship. When we are gathered for genuine worship, we are like a heap of burning coals encouraging one another to warmth of love and devotion. One log by itself cannot burn for very long, but when many logs are put together, even if they are poor logs, they can make quite a fire. Remember the counsel of Proverbs 27:17 that iron sharpens iron. Even rather dull lives can help each other if they are willing to try.