Written by Jill Jansen
One of the Christmas songs that we often sing this time of year is “O come, all ye faithful.” The verses tell us to come joyful and triumphant, come & behold Him, to greet the Lord born on this happy morning. The chorus tells us, “O come, let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore, Him, Christ, the Lord.” Usually the chorus builds in volume as we repeat “O come let us adore Him” and than finishes with all voices singing loudly, “Christ, the Lord.”
For some reason this song has stuck in my head this year.
What do these words mean to me? Do I sing them from memory with little thought as to what the words mean or do I sing these words as a prayer of praise to Christ my Lord? What does the word adore mean? According to Webster’s dictionary it has three meanings. 1: to worship as divine, 2: to love or revere deeply, and 3-(Informal meaning) to like a lot. It is so easy to say that we adore our spouse, our children, our grandchildren. It’s just as easy to say we adore stuff, our job, our car, our home, or a variety of other things. Do I adore Jesus in that same way, or should my adoration be more profound, deeper?
According to WebBible Encyclopedia, adore means: to worship, to express reverence and homage. God’s Word says a lot about how to adore or worship Him. Psalm 95:6-7 says, “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.” Psalm 100 tells us to “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.” I love The Message version of Romans 12:1-2, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best you can do for Him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix you attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well formed maturity in you.” These verses tell me that everything that I do, feel or think, needs to be done for the glory of God.
As I approach God I need to come in humble reverence and total dependence on Him.
I have much to thank him for and I need to express my gratitude to Him. Daily I need to acknowledge that I need the Holy Spirit to live through me. It is because of what Christ did for me in His death and resurrection that I can come joyfully into His presence, bowing before Him and adoring Him. “O come, let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore, Him, Christ, the Lord.”
