I’m continuing my devotional reading of Heaven and came across this paragraph:

In Heaven, where everyone worships Jesus, no one says, “Now we’re going to sing two hymns, followed by announcements and prayer.” The singing isn’t ritual but spontaneous praise. (Revelation 5:11-14). If someone rescued you and your family from terrible harm, especially at great cost to himself, no one would need to tell you, “Better say thank you.” On your own, you would shower him with praise. Even more will you sing your Savior’s praises and tell of his life-saving deeds.

Last night as we sat around a table, I mentioned this the friends I was sitting with and I said that I see an additional angle to this as well. Not only does this paragraph hit right on the head what I think is wrong with most people’s perceptions of worship wars, church service styles, etc but I think this also speaks to the self-righteousness that so many folks have.

Because you see, if you’ve been rescued, and the man that did it is standing before you, you don’t care what he has on, nor do you care what you have on. You don’t care how eloquently you say thank you. You don’t tell him that you need to get cleaned up first before you come back and express your gratitude.

The form of the expression becomes meaningless and the substance of your gratitude for being rescued comes flowing out. Please don’t hear me say that I think taking time to think about or words and our expressions don’t matter at all, but they are meaningless if there is not substance behind them. And I think that is where most Christians and churches have gone very wrong. They are worried more about the expression than they are about the substance.

At Eternity, substance matters. Expressions will vary. And they will be creative as they should be. God’s mercies are new every day. But without a heartfelt gratitude for the love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace that we’ve been shown by the one who rescued us, our expressions are meaningless. God is not honored by substance-less expressions of worship.