Gratitude is Worship
Do you consider your gratitude to God to be worship?
Verse of the Day
‘Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker’
Today’s Devotional
Last year I was blessed with getting to spend some time in Switzerland. There are so many places we visited that are jaw-droppingly beautiful. (The picture above was one such place.) My response to seeing these places was full of awe and wonder at the majesty of God’s creation power.
What if we practiced looking at the everyday blessings with a similar sense of awe and wonder? Wouldn’t then our practice of gratitude become an act of worship?
When I am thanking God for my morning coffee, am I worshiping His goodness and His provision. When I thank God for my husband, I am worshiping His creation and I am worshiping a God of relationship. Because the same God who wants me to have a life-giving relationship with my husband uses that as a reminder that God wants a life-giving relationship with me.
When I take gratitude a simple step further and turn it into worship, it elevates my heart posture as well as extending the depth of my thanks. It is taking a simple, “Thank you” and turning it into “Wow…Thank you so much. I am in awe of Your goodness and you are worthy of worship with every breath that I take.”
If we then follow the invitation of today’s scripture, we could physically kneel as we practice gratitude to the God who gave us everything we are thanking Him for. And there is something very powerful about our physical posture. When I physically kneel to pray, my heart instantly takes on a different posture and attitude before God.
Today, let’s be people whose gratitude is given as an act of worship. Let’s be people who are so grateful that we are driven to our knees. And if gratitude is difficult for any of us right now, then let us be people who kneel in worship anyway. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us remember everything that God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Because God is faithful, He is full of unfailing love, He never leaves us, He is compassionate and kind and good. And He is worthy of our worship.
Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker in gratitude.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Think of the different ways that people have said “thank you” to you over the last few days. How were they different and why?
What does worship mean to you?
Make a list of things for which you are grateful and offer those to God as an act of heartfelt worship (on your knees if you are able).