God's Presence in Our Worship

The reasons we worship corporately and personally are many. But the main purpose should be to bring glory to God. We lift our praises to Him through our songs, our works, our lives. Anything that we do that glorifies Him is our worship. We hear the prayer from worship leaders often, "Please God enter in our presence here today in our worship." But God is always present. In our worship, God's presence is becoming manifested for us, which means it is being made apparent. God awaits for us to invite Him into our presence because that is when He will make us see that He has always been there. "God is present whether we ask Him to be or not!" This challenges the idea that our worship makes any difference in God's presence or not. God's presence can be placed in three parts, His awesome presence, His abiding presence,  and His amazing presence. When we understand these, we will have a better idea of what God's presence means to our worship.

God's awesome presence is best understood if trace what the word "awesome" means. "Awesome is the contemporary adaptation of the word "awful," which originally meant "full of awe," not "horribly bad." So His presence will be a place filled with awe. And it will be overwhelming because it is so immense! In Psalms 139, the psalmist cries out, "Where can I flee from your presence!" There is no place free from the presence of God. His awesome presence should give us a feeling of being humbled, because He is everywhere we must give an account for all we have done. 

God's presence is always abiding in us. His presence remains with us always. His presence will give us comfort as in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." When we worship Him, we are making it clear that that his abiding is present. In our worship, we know that in his omnipresence and awesomeness that He will never stop loving us.

God's presence is amazing! The church in the Acts felt the church shake after they worshipped and called on the name of the Lord (Acts 4.) This is more than just the church making dramatic calls to God, but these worshippers are declaring their love for Christ and He is responding by His amazing power. When we worship this way, it moves us from reverent to intimate worship. When we call upon God in our praise, we see His manifest presence and power.