Heb. 11:6 (NIV) 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
In a previous study we saw that the first ingredient required for worship was humility. We cannot come to God with a proud or haughty spirit. Pride can do nothing but die in the presence of God. God will not allow it into His presence.
The second ingredient required for a successful life of worship is faith. Remember we are not talking about simple praise. Anyone can offer up praise to God, but only certain people are allowed into His presence through worship. Only those that have completely cleansed themselves and are ready to come to God on His terms can participate in the presence of God. So now we come to faith.
In the above passage, the term ..earnestly seek him.. can also be translated as worship. So we can flip this passage around and say, ..Those who worship Him must believe (have faith) that He exists and He will reward them... Then the first part of that passage says that when we believe those two things that we will be pleasing to God, and we know from Romans 12:1 that true worship pleases God.
Let..s look at Abraham. If you continue to read through Hebrews chapter 11, you will find the many ways that Abraham exercised His faith, but let..s look at how He showed his faith in the midst of worship. This first instance of the word ..worship.. in our English bible comes in the account of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.
Gen. 22:5 (NKJV) 5And Abraham said to his young men, ..Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you...
This passage reveals our first two ingredients of worship. The first ingredient, humility, is seen in the fact that Abraham equated his sacrifice of Isaac to worship. In Abrahams opinion, he was simply going to worship. The second ingredient, faith, is seen in the last thing that Abraham tells his servants, ......we will come back to you...
How could Abraham make such a statement? Because He had a deep faith in God. He believed with all his heart that God would either spare Isaac..s life, or He would raise Him from the dead. Why? Because God had given him a promise about his seed many years prior to this turning point event. Abraham knew that God existed. There was no doubt in his mind. He had experienced the hand of God many times in his life. He also knew that God was going to reward him for His act of worship.
While the act and attitude of worship is 100% selfless, God has promised that He will reward us for our diligence. When we worship it is just fine to expect a blessing, because God promised that He would bless us. God may ask us to do things in worship that stretch our comfort level. He may even ask us to do something that challenges our theology. That..s where faith kicks in. When God asks those things of us and we do them, we will find ourselves rise to a deeper level of communion with God, and He will bless us.