Worshipping At All Times

Archive article from http://www.heartofworship.com/ by Eoghan Heaslip, no longer available from the website

Psalm 34

1. I will extol the Lord at all times;
His praise will always be on my lips.

2. My soul will boast in the Lord;
Let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3. Glorify the Lord with me;
Let us exalt his name together.

Verse 1. “I will extol the LORD at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.”
There are times when the first verse of this text seems to tower above me. When I read phrases like ‘at all times’ and ‘will always’ there’s a place in my heart that starts to become uneasy. I hear David’s call echoing out, “Regardless of cost and circumstances, worship!” “At all times”. Something we’re not always ready for, is it? It causes me to look at the patterns and habits of my own private worship and to realize that there’s so much I have yet to learn and be obedient in.

Now let me immediately qualify something. By worship I don’t simply mean singing when we don’t feel like it - or clapping at church to the fast songs when we’re a bad mood. Worship is about responding in right ways to God.

Worship is about the whole of life, right? Romans 12:1 and all that – ‘offer your bodies (meaning, the whole of yourselves) as living sacrifices… for this is your spiritual act of worship’. That’s right. True worship should happen all the time for Christians. If we have a full Biblical perspective on worship, we will see it as a 24/7 reality in response to God’s glory and grace. We should worship God by the way we drive, the way we talk, the way we work.

We live in a very self-centered world, where self-gratification, self-satisfaction, self-fulfillment, and a “what can I get out of this” attitude drives so much of our activities, and determines so many of our responses. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves evaluating worship in the same self focused way.

The word used here, ‘extol’ means to ‘lift up’, to ‘praise highly’. And I believe it carries this challenge to both you and me. To take this ‘lifting up God’ & ‘praising God highly’ to every corner of our lives, regardless of the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. We must worship God, lift Him up and praise Him highly - above all else, and at all times.