Prepare Our Hearts

It is not uncommon to go to church Sunday morning and hear the person up front start with something like "Let's prepare our hearts for worship." I understand the phrase. I like it. In fact, for many years it has been my practice. When I go into the sanctuary -- the room in which the service will be held -- I sit down and spend some time talking to God. I talk to Him about a variety of things. I talk to Him about me and my sin and my gratitude for His forgiveness and such ... because he who is forgiven much loves much, and that's a big part of worship. I talk to Him about the people around me ... because we are marked as His disciples by our love for one another, and that's a big part of worship. I talk to Him about the service getting ready to start ... which is obviously a worship service. I ask Him to guide the leadership and guard the worship service and get into our heads and hearts. So I do prepare my heart for worship.

Recently it occurred to me that, while I think that's a good thing, I think I'm not going about it right. I think that preparing my heart for worship shouldn't begin Sunday morning sitting in the service. It shouldn't begin Sunday morning before I'm getting ready to go to church. In fact, it shouldn't begin ... at all. I should have been doing it all along. Paul said, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom 12:1). The King James says it is your "reasonable worship" (because the Greek word used there is λογικός -- "logikos" -- which, I'm sure, you can see is our source of "logical"). To the world, sacrificing self makes no sense -- it's not logical -- but Jesus said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8:34). That is, a starting place for following Christ is to deny self and take up a cross -- die to self. So, sure, the world sees it as unreasonable, but Christ doesn't. He considers it basic.

Now, if my "reasonable worship" is to be a living sacrifice and I want to "prepare my heart for worship," shouldn't that be an everyday thing? Shouldn't we be dying to self daily? Shouldn't we be worshiping by taking up our cross daily? And, if we were in the business of being a living sacrifice to God daily, what would Sunday look like? I'd argue that it would be a lot less intensive preparation (like repenting of the arguments you had with the family that morning on the way to church, for instance) and a lot deeper worship. Seems to me. I'm not saying, "Don't prepare your hearts for worship on Sunday morning." I'm saying, "Do it every day ... and twice on Sunday."