Pray the WordSample

God's Word Leads Us to Worship Him

What a scene in today's verses! After the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt, Ezra stood up in front of the people of God, and before he said anything, all the people stood to their feet. When Ezra began blessing the Lord, the people started shouting, “Amen. Amen.” They lifted their hands and bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

Notice, all Ezra did was open the Word of God and it elicited praise and worship and shouting. People bowed in awe of “the great God” who had given them his Word. Do we revere God’s Word like this in our lives and in our churches?

When we think about people standing, lifting up their hands, shouting, and maybe even bowing down with their faces to the ground, we normally associate that with musical worship. All it takes today is for somebody to stand up in church with a guitar in hand, and everybody responds by standing and lifting their hands, sometimes with shouts. There’s nothing wrong with this, as Scripture gives us examples of great affection in musical worship.

Yet, there’s a problem when we long to hear or sing a certain song more than we want to hear from God’s Word. What if all it took was opening God’s Word to cause us to stand and shout, or to bow with our faces to the ground? It’s only when we realize the gravity and grace of hearing from God that we will respond rightly. Amazingly, we have access to this Word on a daily basis. May God give us the grace to respond to it rightly.

Prayer

God, help us to revere your Word. We praise you for your Word. We are so thankful for how it speaks to us; for how it directs and guides us; for how it encourages and comforts us; for how it challenges and convicts us; for how it changes and transforms us. God, we praise you for revealing yourself, for how we see and come to know and love you, the great God, through your Word.

So help us in our lives and our families and our churches to revere your Word, to stand in awe of it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.