God Is The Subject Of The Worship Sentence

Go back in your imagination to one of your favorite school grammar classes – sentence diagrams. Can you see yourself in the classroom?

Remember subjects, verbs, and objects in a sentence structure? Remember diagramming sentences on the chalk board?

Subjects act, with a Verb, toward an Object.

In worship, this insight from the world of grammar is very, very important.

It is God who is the Subject of the worship sentence. We are the Objects of the worship sentence, toward which the Subject of the sentence acts through the Verb of Love. If our worship theology begins with God as the Subject of the worship sentence, acting toward us in love, then we are the Objects of His pursuing, relentless, all-consuming desire.

According to 1 John 4:19, we then “love Him,” because “He first loved us.” Worship is our response to God’s actions of love toward us. Then, and only then, does God become the object of the responsive, second worship sentence – as we respond to His initiatives of pursuing love.

Among the many things we may say or think about worship, we cannot get this wrong:

We are the pursued; God is the Pursuer.

Dan +

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From: The 5 Day Worship Theology Email Course

Other Reading: Robert Webber, “God: The Object Or Subject Of Worship?”

Join the email list at www.DanWilt.com/Worship

AVAILABLE NOW

Sheltering Mercy and Endless Grace help us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. Sheltering Mercy helps the reader pray Psalms 1-75; Endless Grace leads in prayer through Psalms 76-150.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. Each book contains 75 prayers drawn from the Book of Psalms, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

These artful, poetic, and classic devotional books are a perfect gift, and feature compelling stunning illustrations and hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.

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