When you worship God, how deep down into you does your adoration go? Words of songs pass through your lips. But does their truth sink into your mind? Does the stunning splendor of God’s glory and grace lay hold of your very core, stirring awestruck wonder?
Or does your worship stay safely on the surface, lest God’s reality rock your world? It is all too easy to say the right words of praise to God while our hearts focus elsewhere: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mark 7:6).
David knows he must summon every fiber of who he is—“all my inmost being”—to praise his God. Such wholehearted praise does not come naturally to our self-centered hearts. In fact, only one man in all history could truly say, “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). He is the God-man Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:5-10). Fixing our heart’s gaze on Jesus gradually attunes our inmost being to His delight in praising His Father, and we worship from the inside out. [Dr. Dennis Johnson, Seminary professor, Escondido, CA]