Many things can motivate us to reach out to others - the desire to see broken people mended, the ache to see our nation morally rejuvenated, the impulse to resist darkness in every sector of our society.  But the only motivation for ministry that lasts a lifetime is that which flows out of a passion for God. How can we maintain such passion? How do we cultivate an intimate relationship with God? How can we develop a keen sensitivity to His voice and an understanding of His ways?

By worshipping Him. All effective ministry flows out of an intimate relationship with God, and that relationship is first and foremost cultivated through worshipping Him. Unless we spend time waiting on Him, allowing His Holy Spirit to create within us an appetite to know Him, we will eventually lose our desire to share His love with others. We’ll find our hearts slowly drifting, our vision unclear, our ministries tedious... responding to God more out of duty than desire. We can find ourselves like the church at Ephesus to whom Jesus said, "I know your deeds, your hard work ... Yet, I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love." (REVELATION 2: 2, 4).

Good works, unless they are fueled by a passion for God, can actually generate apathy and burnout. Any real thority in evangelism wanes because there is so little joy within us attracting unbelievers. Worshipping God is a primary key to knowing Him. When the heavens unfolded before Isaiah, he was awestruck by the vision of Divine Majesty and the sound of fiery seraphs exclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.” (ISAIAH 6:3) Think of it! These angelic creatures have repeated this refrain for millennia past counting! What could ever motivate them to worship so? How could anyone, anything, sustain this intensity? Could it be that every time they worship Him, God reveals something of Himself they have never seen? Enrapturing them so that they exalt Him all the more? Which then moves God to reveal even more of Himself? Oh, the knowledge of God is inexhaustible; all the fascinating intricacies of His character and nature never ending! There will always be something to discover about God. No wonder we will worship for eternity! It’s a lifestyle of worship that opens our hearts to know Him, and it’s knowing Him which fuels our passion to make Him known to others.

Worshipping God makes us sensitive to His promptings. That’s why worship is intricately linked with prayer and intercession.  Without meaning to, we can find ourselves praying our own agenda, about the things we feel are important. Yet, one of the great secrets to effective intercession is to understand God’s thoughts about a given situation and pray accordingly. Scripture clearly states that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. We need to know His thoughts, and that kind of sensitivity is cultivated in worship. Worship and intercession are inseparable. When breathing, we inhale and we exhale. Intercession is like exhaling. We pray out certain things, believing that God will act according to the prayers He has prompted through us. But if all we do is exhale, we’ll run out of air in a matter of moments. No, there must be a rhythm between exhaling and inhaling. F.B. Mayer once said, "Try breathing out three times without breathing in." Spiritually, we inhale when we worship God. Through the act of worship we receive fresh grace, fresh insights into God’s character and the release of faith to believe Him for His promises. It is that which gives us the ability to exhale in intercession. Attempting to pray without worshipping God will ultimately drain us of enthusiasm for prayer.

STEVEN FRY IS A CONFERENCE SPEAKER, AUTHOR, WORSHIP LEADER AND SONGWRITER WHOSE SONGS INCLUDE "OH, THE GLORY OF YOUR PRESENCE", "JESUS, YOU ARE MY LIFE" AND "OH, I WANT TO KNOW YOU MORE." THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM, "THE LIGHTHOUSE MOVEMENT HANDBOOK", COMPILED BY DR. CORNELL HAHN, © 1999, REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF MULTNOMAH PUBLISHERS, INC.