This Sunday we are going to be walking through Luke 19:41-48 where Jesus clears the Court of the Gentiles. Jesus has a red hot zeal for worship (John 2:17).  His zeal for worshiping God was to be extended to all the nations! We see Jesus halting the traffic of those who were using the Court of Gentiles as a shortcut—he “would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” So much for the one-sided “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” 

Red. Hot. Zeal.

John Piper reminds us about the importance of worship in his book Let the Nations Be Glad:

"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever."

This is not a new fandangled idea that some pastor from Minnesota came up with! God not only deserves our praise, but longs for it! Check out this short list:

• Psalm 67:3-4
• Psalm 70:4
• Psalm 96:3-4
• Psalm 97:1
• Psalm 117:1
• Philippians 2:10-11

So, if the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (see Westminster Catechism Question and Answer #1), it must start with our worshiping Him! I can't wait for Sunday's gathered worship! I am praying already this week that we would see and savor the beauty of Christ. And oh, that as we admire and worship him, we would be changed by what we see and become a more tenderly-moved, self-denying, need-meeting people.

In the meantime, meditate on Archbishop William Temple's definition of worship and start preparing for gathered worship:

“to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”