The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship

by A.W. Tozer

“Worship,” Tozer explained, “is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that majesty which philosophers call the First Cause but which we call Our Father Which Art in Heaven.”

“I want to deliver my soul as a prophet of God to the people, and to explain why we were created and why we are here, not to the satisfaction of the immediate appetite only but to something bigger, grander and more eternal, that we might worship God and enjoy Him forever.”

“My ambition is to love God more than any one of my generation.”

worship is the Christian’s full-time occupation. Nothing should be allowed to interfere or diminish this sacred duty of the believer.

Adam and Eve’s unique purpose in the garden was to bring pleasure, joy and fellowship to God, which is the foundation of all genuine worship.

This blaming someone else for all our iniquities is one of the great evidences of sin and is the forerunner of religion.

The real tragedy in the Garden of Eden was that Adam and Eve lost their purpose. They forgot who they were. They did not know where they were; they did not understand where they came from or what they were here for. They forgot the purpose of their existence.

Religion only addresses man’s external condition, not his internal confusion.

I desire to deliver my soul as a prophet of God and explain from the Bible why we were created and why we are here. It may not satisfy the temporary needs at the time, but it will satisfy something bigger, grander and more eternal. That biblically defined purpose is that we might worship God and enjoy Him forever.

That biblically defined purpose is that we might worship God and enjoy Him forever

If a person is living just because it is the best alternative to dying, what good is it?

God made man in His own image and blew in him the breath of life to live in His presence and worship Him. God then sent man out into the world to increase, multiply and fill the earth with men and women who would worship God in the beauty of holiness. That is our supreme purpose.

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

Worship is man’s full reason for existence. Worship is why we are born and why we are born again. Worship is the reason for our genesis in the first place and our regenesis that we call regeneration. Worship is why there is church, the assembly of the Redeemed, in the first place. Every Christian church in every country across the world in every generation exists to worship God first, not second; not tacking worship at the end of our service as an afterthought, but rather to worship God primarily, with everything else coming in second, at best. Worshiping God is our first call.

are born and why we are born again. Worship is the reason for our genesis in the first place and our regenesis that we call regeneration.

That is what you are here for, to glorify God and enjoy Him thoroughly and forever, telling the universe how great God is.

God does not accept just any kind of worship. He accepts worship only when it is pure and when it flows from a heart under the afflatus of the Holy Spirit. Only such worship, compatible with His holy nature, can possibly be accepted by Him.

He accepts worship only when it is pure and directed by the Holy Spirit.

To worship as God can accept means submitting to the truth about God, admitting who God says He is and to admit that Christ is who and what He says He is.

When the Spirit of God takes over, we worship in spirit and in truth; and that worship exceeds mere external rituals.

The operation of the Spirit of God within us enables us to worship God acceptably through that person we call Jesus Christ, who is Himself God. Therefore, worship originates with God, comes back to us and is reflected from us.

Jesus taught essentially that we are portable sanctuaries, and if we are worshiping in spirit and in truth, we can take our sanctuary around with us.

True worship elevates us above all the accoutrements of religion into that rarified atmosphere of God’s holy and delightful presence.

Then there are those who inform us that there is truth in every religion. This is like saying there is water in most poisons, and so it is all right to drink. It is not the water that kills; it is the poison. The more ambiguous the poison, the more dangerous it is. The closer it is to the real thing, the more damage it does. And

The supreme reason the Lord was born of the Virgin Mary to suffer under Pontius Pilate to be crucified, die and be buried; the reason He overcame death and rose again from the grave is that He might make worshipers out of rebels. We are the recipients of a grace meant to save us from self-centeredness and make worshipers out of us.

God wants worshipers before He wants workers. He calls us back to that for which we were created—to worship the Lord God and to enjoy Him forever. And then out of our deep worship flows our work for Him. Our work is only acceptable to God if our worship is acceptable.

They had a spirit of no expectation. True worship that is pleasing to God creates within the human heart a spirit of expectation and insatiable longing.

True worship that is pleasing to God creates within the human heart a spirit of expectation and insatiable longing.

If worship bores you, you are not ready for heaven. Worship is the very atmosphere of heaven focusing on the person of Jesus Christ.

We come to Christ so that we might be individually redeemed and made in the image of Christ—vibrant, personal Christians who love God with all our heart and worship Him in the beauty of holiness.

Worship is an awesome thing, and I would rather worship God than any other thing I know of in the entire world.

Worship is to feel in the heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe. Worship will humble a person as nothing else can. The egotistical, self-important man cannot worship God any more than the arrogant devil can worship God. There must be humility in the heart before there can be worship.

When the Holy Spirit comes and opens heaven until people stand astonished at what they see, and in astonished wonderment confess His uncreated loveliness in the presence of that most ancient mystery, then you have worship.

Adoration is white heat made incandescent with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and it is to love with all the powers within us. It is to feel, to love with fear, wonder, yearning and awe.

We worship this One in mystery and wonder. We worship not man but God in the flesh.

The total life, the whole man and woman, must worship God. Faith, love, obedience, loyalty, conduct and life—all of these are to worship God.

Worship pleasing to God saturates our whole being. There is no worship pleasing to God until there is nothing in me displeasing to God. I cannot departmentalize my life, worship God on Sunday and not worship Him on Monday.

We cannot live after our nature and worship after His. When His nature and ours begin to harmonize under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the power of His name begins to be felt.

Your time is not your own; it belongs to the God who created time.

Worship is not a spotlight focusing on one area of life. True worship, worship that is pleasing to God, radiates throughout a person’s entire life.

you cannot deal with the matter of true worship and omit the question of sin.

Our Lord sees how bad we are, but He is the Lord of all mercy and He does not care. In His great kindness, He takes rebels and un-righteous persons, sinners, and makes them His own and establishes them in righteousness and renews a right spirit within them. His righteousness becomes their righteousness, and out of chaos comes the divine order.

What is the purpose of the local church? And why is the church necessary? According to the Bible, a local church exists to do corporately what each Christian should do individually all week: namely, worship God and show forth the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light; reflect back the glory of Him who shined down on us, even God, even Christ,

even the Holy Ghost. All that Christ has done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end.

The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross that He might make His people worshipers of God. That is why we were born, that we might show forth the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

The purpose of God is that He might redeem us, put us all in the heavenly choir and keep us there singing His praises and showing forth His excellencies while the ages roll. This is the purpose of God in redemption.

We are a holy people, a royal priesthood, a holy generation called out of darkness to show forth the glory of the One who called us out. We should take whatever steps are needed to fulfill our high design as a New Testament church.

To maintain a lifestyle of worship, we must attend to it on a daily basis.

By nature, worship is not some performance we do, but a Presence we experience. Unless in our worship we have experienced the Presence of God, it cannot rightly be called Christian worship.

The important thing is to get alone with the Word of God. Then in the quietness of the moment, and as we draw near to God, we will begin to hear Him speak in our hearts. This is the most important part of our initial walk with God.