The worship of God is not as easy as some might think. It is easy enough to pretend to worship. All the forms are well known: raised hands, bowed head, bent knees. The jargon of praise is easily learned. Songs are easy enough if you can carry a tune. But something should tell us that it is not that easy. Not really. Not in truth.

Now, I have been in a service where the leader tried to lead a cheer for Jesus. We were called upon to shout aloud in praise of God, and we did. But there was to me something false about it. It was not at all like the shout that goes up when a football team scores. It wasn’t even as good as Give me an E with cheerleaders leading us at the game.

Even bowing down and kneeling—is it an expression of great reverence or mere religious form? Of course, we have to face the fact that our hearts have been hardened to such things. But the cure is not pretense. Consider an act of great worship we find in the Book of Revelation, chapter 4…