Sunday is the day that most Christians flock to church. They don their ‘Sunday-best’ and shine up their church faces to smile at other shined-up church faces. During the hour-long so-called worship service, they stand on command, sit on command, kneel on command, recite on command, sing on command, keep silent on command, and (most importantly) give money on command. This is what worship service is all about. After it’s over, they leave the church building and figure they’ve done their worshiping for the week. Then they go about their non-church lives.

Apparently these Christians didn’t get the memo: You don’t need to go into a building to be in church or to worship. If you’re born again, you’re already in church – God’s church, which is made up of born-again souls in human bodies. If you’re born again, you’re in church now, wherever you are. You’re in church all the time, and everything you do is your worship.

Everything you do is your worship.

Everything you do is your worship.

Make sure it’s worthy of God.

Jesus was not a fan of ritual during his ministry years on Earth. In the gospels, we see only two episodes that could be considered rituals – one was his baptism by John the Baptist, and the other was the Passover meal just before his crucifixion. Nothing he did in between could really be construed as ‘ritual’. Even his public prayers were in no way ritualized. He just talked to God the way I’m talking to you now. That’s what prayer is.

Contrast Jesus’ extreme lack of ritualized worship to the super-abundance of ritualized worship that characterizes most church services today. In some cases (Catholicism, for instance), the entire service is a ritual that is essentially just a performance, a show (as in “as show of piety”). There is nothing genuinely worshipful about it. You don’t even have to be a Catholic or even believe in God to take part in it; you just have to show up, preferably with your wallet.

Jesus said that God is looking for people to worship him in spirit and in truth. A ritualized worship service where everything is scripted and done on command is NOT worshiping in spirit and in truth. At the very best, it’s just “showing up”; at the very worst, it’s demon worship. Demons demand ritual and strict order in worship. God doesn’t: he just wants you to be yourself and do what you do, with him in mind.

This, here and now, is worship. I’m worshiping by writing, and you’re worshiping by reading.

This is what Jesus meant when he said to worship in spirit and in truth. He meant to be authentic. He meant to be real. Paul said to do all things as if unto God and to pray without ceasing. He meant to live your life knowingly and consciously in God’s presence. He meant to do your best at all times, and to look to God for help and guidance at all times. He meant to make your entire life your worship, not just one hour a week in a designated building.

Everything you do is your worship, from the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night. You are always in church. You are always in God’s presence.

Everything you do is your worship.

Let your life reflect that.