Embrace Worship: Entering

There’s a true sense of entering into worship that I suspect we take too lightly or don’t consciously consider at all. Perhaps we overlook the literal word because entering seems too commonplace to be holy.

Most days we enter buildings and binding contracts, competitions and new seasons.
But then we also enter into relationships…and the presence of God.

The paradox of it all, however, might actually help us dig deeper into the holy practice of entering into worship of our holy Father. The common may be the signpost we need to find our way toward embracing worship with all that we are.

And so, let us begin with investigation:

What lets us in? What gives us entrance? 
Doors and gates. Agreements and promises. 
Qualifications and hope.
Determination and faith. 
Humility.
Grace.

Sometimes we enter with trepidation. Other times it’s with joyful anticipation!

Some entrances are momentary while others are forever.
Some demand great courage while others require self-control.
Some lead us in the wrong direction while others deepen all that is good and right and holy.

So, perhaps we’re meant to pay attention to each door and agreement before stepping into them. And even take the time to determine our path before moving toward the next door so that we aren’t swept through entryways that lead to regret and remorse. 

It is my prayer that we…

• recognize the openings before us that are holy, that are beckoning us forward, further into God’s presence and promises. 
• recall and receive God’s words to “be strong and very courageous,” trusting that He will be our strength and courage (Joshua 1:7). 
• remember all that Jesus lived, died, and lives for now – and how we might enter into His righteousness. By His body. By His blood.

Holy Communion is an invitation to step forward by faith and into the waiting arms of our Savior – to remember. But not just for remembering’s sake. Rather, for movement. From doubt to trust. From fear to love. From despair to hope. 

Stepping into such communion is to receive the Body broken for us with hearts that recall all that He willingly, lovingly sacrificed for us. To take-in the Blood shed for us with spirits that awaken to the reality that Christ’s blood flows through us – that Christ still lives in us! 

From such awakening flows free and full adoration of the One who is the door, the One who has made a way for such intimacy with the Father, Son, and Spirit. 

And with such consecrating holiness comes the desire to do whatever necessary to proclaim Jesus to others. To share this life in Christ. To serve and to tell. 

To become the demonstration of His love in the world. 

In this way, Holy Communion’s remembering becomes for us an active symbol of our own interactions with Christ and the effects of such holy intimacy. Such heart-felt worship and relationship leads us from consecration to demonstration – because truly knowing Jesus opens doors! Filled with His presence and sourced by His sacrifice, we enter His fellowship, His grace, His love, and His work.

Entering Intimacy

I hesitate to use a particular phrase because it has a long history of misunderstanding and divisiveness. Yet, this phrase so perfectly invokes the idea of entering the door to grace and closeness with Jesus that it seems appropriate for our purposes. The phrase is the means of grace. 

The word means by definition is “the medium, method, or instrument used to obtain a result or achieve an end.” If we seek the salvation Jesus offers, Christ and His grace are the ‘end’, the only way (John 10:9). But God has given us tangible, “outward signs, words, or actions…to be the ordinary channels whereby” He might convey His grace to people.¹ These are the ‘means’, the gates through which we might experience the grace and person of Jesus. 

I acknowledge not every theology espouses this way of understanding means of grace, but in all of my digging and even in my personal experiences, I’ve come to understand that God can offer anyone who sincerely seeks His Son a means of meeting Him – be it baptism or Scripture, prayer or Holy Communion.¹ 

To be sure, none of the ‘means’ are the ‘end’. We don’t achieve grace through our works (Ephesians 2:8-9), but with the right spirit, we can experience the grace of Jesus through holy practices. In this way, Holy Communion is one means of entering God’s grace. 

To take it a step further, Holy Communion, though not described as ‘worship’ in the New Testament,² can be an expression of our worship. It can even be a means of experiencing and entering into a worshipful attitude. 

And so – on this journey to embrace worship, it is good and right to consider how we might enter holy worship more fully. Such ‘entering’ doesn’t happen through striving or personal determination. But we have been given access, the means, of entering into a deeply intimate relationship with Jesus. Namely, His body and blood.³ 

Jesus invites us to enter into a relationship with Him through whatever holy means. And this intimacy grows over time – the more we are with Him, the deeper we dig into His heart, ultimately leading us beyond self and toward others.

Proclaiming and Demonstrating Christ

Nothing about this life in Christ is meant to be stationary or stuck. When we enter one door, another awaits. We keep moving forward – and deeper – always toward the ‘more’ Jesus has for us. This is especially true in worship; we never ‘arrive’. There is always movement.

“The preciousness of Christ presses itself on our memory, and then that inner remembering breaks out in proclaiming the worth of what we remember.”² 

Think of our human nature – when we experience something that delights us, we tell people about it! A movie. A restaurant. A book. A trip to the mountains. God, our Creator, knows this about us. He put this in us – I’d like to think because He wants us, His creation, to be the means of telling others about His Son!

So while Holy Communion may not come with the label of ‘worship’, it can open the way for “an authentic heart experience which says: this death and all it achieved is so valuable that it must not only be remembered; it must be proclaimed!”² Our experience of Jesus through the taking of the bread and wine moves us from remembering to proclaiming – a call that Paul was sure to remind us of: 

“As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

1 Corinthians 11:26

As such, we become a living demonstration of Christ and His love in the world.

This progression – from sincere seeking to entering to experiencing to proclaiming to demonstrating – only happens when we keep returning to the Source of grace and truth, of love and eternal hope. Intimacy doesn’t happen in one meeting; it grows roots and flourishes with time, attention, and nurturing. 

Intimacy also doesn’t happen without vulnerability, where we spiritually, emotionally, and mentally lay every part of ourselves before the Lord⁴ — because it’s in those places that God meets us and the Spirit does His work in us. It’s because of that work fruit is borne, and “the intimacy we have with Christ becomes something someone else can see.”⁴ 

I love how JD Walt puts it, “the further we follow him, the more our presence exudes his presence.”⁵ In other words, we cannot contain all that we experience of Christ within ourselves. And we shouldn’t. Because we’re meant to proclaim and demonstrate to others, through our actions as well as our words, what it’s like to enter into Christ’s presence and never be the same.

This is worship.

Father God, encourage us as we process these deep and mysterious things about worship, about You. Guide us toward your truth, but even more so, toward You. Help us to release our tight grips on manmade ideas so that we might be able to fully and sincerely enter into your presence with trust and vulnerability. Help us to recognize that You have given us multiple means of meeting your Son personally and intimately. Lord Jesus, we know and believe that You are the only Way. You are the Gate; You are the Door. But sometimes we have a hard time with the unseen. So we thank You that in your wisdom You have left us visual, tangible reminders of who You are and what You have accomplished through the giving of your body and the shedding of your blood. May the practice of Holy Communion continue to be a means of entering into divine intimacy with You – because the bread and wine represent You and your sacrifice. Holy Spirit, You are the source of Jesus’ grace in our lives. And You are the One who will equip us with all we need to proclaim what Jesus has accomplished in our lives – through our words and by your prompting. Through our actions and by your leading. This life of worshiping Jesus leads us into deeper waters that so delight and empower us that we look forward to proclaiming and demonstrating Jesus to others. We do so in faith and by your grace. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
(inspired by Psalm 27:14; Romans 8:31; Psalm 25:4-5; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 4:16; John 14:6,10:9; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25,26; Hebrews 10:29; John 15:26; 1 Peter 2:9-10)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – Dr. Kevin Watson gives a great summary of John Wesley’s sermon on “The Means of Grace.” 
• 2 – This Desiring God article, “The Lord’s Supper as Worship,” further inspects these ideas.
• 3 – This article is actually a conversation that looks into what John Wesley believed about Holy Communion. I find it interesting to read the varying views and to come away realizing there will always be a holy mystery in the ways of God. I do love this John Wesley quote from this post because it leads us into the mystery of the Lord’s Supper that is “not a bare memorial only…”
  • “I haste to this Sacrament for the same purpose that St. Peter and John hastened to His sepulchre; because I hope to find Him there.
  • I come then to God’s altar, with a full persuasion that these words, This is My body, promise me more than a figure; that this holy banquet is not a bare memorial only […] in what manner this is done I know not; it is enough for me to admire.
  • And thus His body and blood have everywhere, but especially at this Sacrament, a true and real presence.”
• 4 – A quote from Lisa Harper’s Back Porch Theology podcast episode, “Theology of Worship Part Two” with four women who lead worship regularly.
• 5 – JD Walt in his Wake Up Call on 5/27/25.
• There is really no other song other than “Amazing Grace” to lift up after a deep dive like this one. Chris Tomlin’s version, with the added refrain, is on our Embrace Worship Spotify playlist. Let us move from remembering to living out the truth that it is by grace we are saved. And that God’s grace can be experienced through means like Holy Communion.
  • ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
    And grace my fears relieved
    How precious did that grace appear
    The hour I first believed
    
    My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
    My God, my Savior has ransomed me
    And like a flood His mercy reigns
    Unending love, amazing grace
• Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Many of you have already found me on Substack! Thank you so much! While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective. And, if you’d rather listen to these weekly posts, you can now do so on Substack — it’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes of those who have subscribed on my website, and I post them on Substack — usually within the first week of the month. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. These next three months we’re focusing on the rhythm of worship (surprise!).

• Each week we ‘highlight’ and ‘tab’ a section in our Prayer Bibles, and this week we will stick with last week’s passage: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Recall that this summer we’re marking significant passages about the various facets of worship so that we can find them easily, put them to memory, and apply them in our abiding lives. These are words we can pray with a little personalization. They can also become words of reverence-filled worship. This week, Paul helps us see the movement that occurs when we step out in faith to participate in Christ’s grace, entering into intimacy with Him (by way of His Body and Blood) and on into the proclamation of Jesus — of all He has done and will do! So, let us once again settle into these important words from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 in the NLT:
  
  “For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.’ For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.”
• We’re all called to share the truths about the work of Jesus. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. Believe it or not, we worship God each time we share our stories of faith! We use our whole selves to tell about our holy God!!

Featured Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash.
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