As a child, I used to take for granted that our Morning Worship service began each Sunday at 10:45a.m. Of course, Evening Worship was Sunday evenings at 6 p.m. and Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. I went to many different churches growing up, but I think the worship announcements were the same. We prayed, sang some songs, heard a boring sermon and left.

The culmination of it all, I assumed, was worship – but it wasn't. Real worship is the answer. It doesn't matter what the problem is, worship is the answer. It is not a schedule of the morning service or the first, second and fourth verse of Hymn #384. Worship is a verb.

 I am a language arts teacher and hold a degree in English. When I first heard that the old morning worship service was now acting as a verb instead of a noun, it made me think. Verbs are action words – they are used to describe somebody actively participating in activity

Worship is a word tossed around as flippantly as terms like "getting saved" and "walking in victory." We learn to speak in spiritual semantics without grasping the supernatural truths. But worship is the answer. Worship is an active, participatory event that will both control our lives and transform them.

 Jesus says in John 4:23-24 "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (NKJV).

The word truth in this reference means to worship in purity of expression and heart. Worship is not a place you go or a thing you schedule. It is inward, extending outward. Worship is the heart you have for God living in daily expression.

 And when we express ourselves, it usually involves our voice, our body. How often do we merely think about what we feel or believe about a situation? If we see beautiful things, we say that they are beautiful. In fact, the opposite is true as well. Someone wrongs us or something is bad, and we do not hesitate to express ourselves.

Likewise, worship, from our heart, will manifest itself in some form of expression, whatever might be appropriate to our personalities. God is a personal God, and how can we not express ourselves to Him? Surrender is key in worship and pure expression. It is impossible to stand in the presence of the living Lord and have a pure heart and not surrender everything to him.

Quite frankly, I discovered this because initially, as I was learning and growing in the Lord, I would go to church angry at someone for some petty reason and try to worship. What utter misery!  "I can't believe she cut me off in the church parking lot of all places. How very Christian!" My mind would reel as the music began. "I worship you, Almighty God." "She knew I was pulling in there.." La, la, la. Back and forth. God must have heard it as if I were cracking every note I sang in my annoyance and pettiness.

 By that point God was probably wondering how I could care about parking if I was truly in His presence. But, of course, I wasn't. I knew I was lying to myself. How could I hold something against someone and raise my hands and open my heart to God? It is impossible. First John chapter 3 says we are liars if we hate people and claim to love God. God is love. And He is truth. If we are not operating in love and truth in His presence, He can no sooner move in us than we would sprout wings and fly around the city.

I cannot ever begin to truly worship, whether at home alone or in the company of everyone at church, and hold back one part of myself. Not even a little. The spirit of us is the essence of us. When it is troubled, we are troubled; when it is free, we are free.. "in spirit and in truth."

 Worship has been the transforming power in my own life. It began, as it often does, through music. I grew up with a love for music and singing in youth choirs. But in 1997, God used that music to transform me and make me into a true worshiper. At that point, I was beginning to grow deeper in the things of God, but I was struggling a lot, too. I attend a church where people often lift their hands and express their worship more outwardly. But each week, as everyone else seemed to enter the Holy of Holies, I couldn't seem to enter into that place they all seemed to be. I didn't understand it, but I knew I wanted it.

 And I got it. After years of barely being "saved," I started to get it. And God used the very same songs I could not seem to "get into to" to get into me. On December 1, 1997, I was driving to work, smoking a cigarette. I had smoked for 14-and-a-half-years, since early into my adolescence. That morning, during a worship song, while driving on an old country road, the Lord delivered me instantly.

I was shocked! I did not even know what deliverance was (except one of those weird terms radical people throw around!) All I knew was that I had tried before to quit smoking and ended up sobbing in deep mourning because I had grown up with it and it was like killing a friend. But that morning it all changed. I have not had a single drag of a cigarette since that morning the Lord delivered me-I saw a vision of the Cross as the song played and to this day I can even see the angle of the Cross as it hangs.

I could never smoke again. And I could never quit before. I always said it made me a "Second Class Christian." I was excited to go to church after the smoking deliverance. I was eager to try to worship. And I could. Of course I could. I now knew the power of God, the power of worship. Maybe doubt that God can truly manifest Himself so powerfully in our own lives is a hindrance to us now. I know it affected me.

I would see people in active worship and want to know why they seemed so happy. They didn't look like the radical nuts I secretly thought they must be; they looked joyful. But I was afraid to try. I always said I was afraid of later feeling like "The Fool."

 Someone once pointed out to me the verse that says "And David danced before the LORD with all his might, wearing a priestly tunic" (II Samuel 6:14,NLT). My friend told me to think about what it meant to dance with all your might. It was kind of an overwhelming thought. David was wearing his priestly garment, indicating that it was a holy event, not a carnal moment. David worshipped with purity of heart and expression. Yet his own wife despised him: "When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him" (16b).

 Later when Michal confronts him and says, "How glorious the king of Israel looked today!" (verse 20), she is speaking with contempt and sarcasm. But David retorts, "I was dancing before the Lord; I am willing to look like a fool in order to show my joy in the Lord" (verse 21).

 Today I suspect I look pretty foolish to some. I am now a member of my church's worship team, helping to lead others in what I could not do just years ago! For me the worship realization began with the smoking deliverance. I kept thinking that once the excitement wore down, and the feeling wore off, I would smoke. But even when I was tempted, I couldn't. Somehow inside of myself, I knew God had let me have something very special and precious.

 Every time I thought of smoking, I saw the Cross again. I saw Jesus. I remembered the moment. When it happened, I could not stop praising God, worshipping Him. I mean, even as I drove, I was lost in pure worship. And I didn't know then that it was only the beginning. That day I was free from something that had had a hold on me for 14-and-a-half years. God now had the hold on me-a beautiful, wonderful hold.  I loved Him so much for freeing me, and my response was a desire to worship and serve Him more. How could I care about petty things? I was free!

 We all worship every day. Worship, put in simple and natural terms, is exalting one thing above everything else. Whatever is the focus of our lives internally is the object of our worship. If all day long we walk around work thinking of that jerk in the other office, our worship is on that situation because it is not God's love and focus on our hearts. Whether it is a minor thing like a parking situation, or a major thing that we might even have a "right" to worry about, if the situation dictates our actions rather than God and His Word that is what we are worshipping.

 Worship is external in our expressions; it is internal in our motivations. But worship is the answer to it all. It is the key that unlocks the victory of the true Christian life as opposed to the mediocrity many Christians live every day. Worship is the instrument by which we can stay on the Narrow Way Jesus describes in Matthew 7. And, at the end of it all, worship, as shown in Revelation is our future. The final book of the Bible reveals that those who have endured in Christ will fall on their faces and worship Him with singing and praises.

Worship is what we have to look forward to, and it is what God has allowed us to taste now. Jesus says "And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32, NLT). It began for me in a white truck, clugging down an old country road one cold morning. The Cross, I discovered, is not an old story; it is a current truth. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews). How can we not live a life of worship in light of the truth we know?