First, Psalm 29:2 states:  “Give unto the LORD the glory due unto His Name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”  This points us to the true meaning for worship.  It is to give to the Lord the glory and honor He deserves.  In fact, worship is a natural, almost unavoidable response by God’s creation, when they cannot but respond to Him with words of adoration and thankfulness for what He has done (see Rev. 15:3-4).

 

“When a long Chapter is read and a long prayer offered, the service is made wearisome, and at its close a sense of relief is felt.  God is dishonored when the hour of worship is made dry and irksome, when it is so tedious, so lacking in interest, that the children dread it.”  7T:43.

 

“The religion that comes from God is the only religion that can lead to God.  In order to serve Him aright, we must be born of the Divine Spirit.  This will lead to watchfulness.  It will purify the heart and renew the mind, and give us a new capacity for knowing and loving God.  It will give us willing obedience to all His requirements.  This is true worship.”  CD:37.3; 9T:153-156 (1909).

 

“Were children, in the home life, educated and trained to be grateful to the Giver of all good things, we would see an element of Heavenly grace manifest in our families.  Cheerfulness would be seen in the home life, and coming from such homes, the youth would bring a spirit of [149]

 

“respect and reverence with them into the schoolroom and into the Church.  There would be an attendance in the sanctuary where God meets with His people, a reverence for all the ordinances of His worship, and grateful praise and thanksgiving would be offered for all the gifts of His providence.”  CG:148.3.

 

“Children imitate their parents; hence great care should be taken to give them correct models.  Parents who are kind and polite at home, while at the same time they are firm and decided, will see the same traits manifested in their children.  If they are upright, honest, and honorable, their children will be quite likely to resemble them in these particulars.  If they reverence and worship God, their children, trained in the same way, will not forget to serve Him also.”  CG:215.2; T5:319-320.

 

“Some receive the idea that in order to carry out that separation from the world that the Word of God requires, they must be neglectful of their apparel.  There is a class of sisters who think they are carrying out the principle of nonconformity to the world by wearing an ordinary sun-bonnet, and the same dress worn by them through the week, upon the Sabbath when appearing in the assembly of the saints to engage in the worship of God.  And some men who profess to be Christians view the matter of dress in the same light.  These persons assemble with God’s people upon the Sabbath, with their clothing dusty and soiled, and even with gaping rents in their garments, which are placed upon their persons in a slovenly manner. {GC:428.1}

 

“This class, if they had an engagement to meet a friend honored by the world, by whom they wished to be especially favored, would exert themselves to appear in his presence with the best apparel that could be obtained; for this friend would feel insulted were they to come into his presence with their hair uncombed and garments uncleanly and in disorder.  Yet these persons think that it is no matter in what dress they appear or what is the condition of their persons when they meet upon the Sabbath to worship the great God.”  CG:428.2; RH, January 30, 1900.

 

“In every family there should be a fixed time for morning and evening worship.  How appropriate it is for parents to gather their children about them before the fast is broken, to thank the heavenly Father for His protection during the night, and to ask Him for His help and guidance and watch care during the day!”  CG:520.1.

 

“The father, who is the priest of his household, should conduct the morning and evening worship.  There is no reason why this should not be the most interesting and enjoyable exercise of the home life, and God is dishonored when it is made dry and irksome.  Let the seasons of family worship be short and spirited.  Do not let your children or any member of your family dread them because of their tediousness or lack of interest.  When a long chapter is read and explained and a long prayer offered, this precious service becomes wearisome, and it is a relief when it is over.”  CG:521.3.

 

“We are robbing the Lord when we unfit ourselves to worship Him upon His holy day.  And we are robbing ourselves as well; for we need the warmth and glow of association, as well as the strength to be gained from the wisdom and experience of other Christians.”  CG:530.1; RH, June 13, 1882.

 

“Fathers and mothers should make it a rule that their children attend public worship on the Sabbath, and should enforce the rule by their own example.  It is our duty to command our children and our household after us, as did Abraham.  By example as well as precept we should impress upon them the importance of religious teaching.  All who have taken the baptismal vow have solemnly consecrated themselves to the service of God; they are [531]

 

“under covenant obligation to place themselves and their children where they may obtain all possible incentives and encouragement in the Christian life.  {RH, June 13, 1882; CG:530.3}

 

“But while we worship God, we are not to consider this a drudgery.  The Sabbath of the Lord is to be made a blessing to us and to our children.  They are to look upon the Sabbath as a day of delight, a day which God has sanctified; and they will so consider it if they are properly instructed.”  CG:530-531; Manuscript 3, 1879.CN 502.3 (Español (Spanish))

 

“Many need instruction as to how they should appear in the assembly for worship on the Sabbath.  They are not to enter the presence of God in the common clothing worn during the week.  All should have a special Sabbath suit, to be worn when attending service in God’s House.  While we should not conform to worldly fashions, we are not to be indifferent in regard to our outward appearance.  We are to be neat and trim, though without adornment.  The children of God should be pure within and without.”  CG:531.2; 6T:355.

 

“We have abundant reason. . . even to be more thoughtful and reverential in our worship than had the Jews.  But an enemy has been at work to destroy our faith in the sacredness of Christian worship.”  CG:541.1; 5T:495-496.

 

“The house is the sanctuary for the family, and the closet or the grove the most retired place for individual worship; but the Church is the sanctuary for the congregation.  There should be rules in regard to the time, the place, and the manner of worshiping.”  CG:541.2; 5T:491.

 

“All who love the worship of God and prize the blessing of His sacred presence will manifest the same spirit of sacrifice in preparing a house where He may meet with them.  They will desire to bring to the Lord an offering of the very best that they possess.  A house built for God should not be left in debt, for He is thereby dishonored.  An amount sufficient to accomplish the work should be freely given, that the workmen may be able to say. . . ‘Bring no more offerings.’ ”  CIHS:24.5.

 

“True worship consists in working together with Christ.  Prayers, exhortation, and talk are cheap fruits, which are frequently tied on; but fruits that are manifested in good works, in caring for the needy, the fatherless, and widows, are genuine fruits, and grow naturally upon a good tree.”  ChS:96.5; RH, August 16, 1881.

 

“Our meetings should be made intensely interesting.  They should be pervaded with the very atmosphere of Heaven.  Let there be no long, dry speeches and formal prayers, merely for the sake of occupying the time.  All should be ready to act their part with promptness, and when their duty is done, the meeting should be closed. Thus the interest [212]

 

“will be kept up to the last.  This is offering to God acceptable worship.  His service should be made interesting and attractive, and not be allowed to degenerate into a dry form.”  ChS:211-212; 5T:609.

 

“Sinful indulgence defiles the body and unfits men for spiritual worship.  He who cherishes the light which God has given him upon health reform has an important aid in the work of becoming sanctified through the truth and fitted for immortality.  But if he disregards that light and lives in violation of natural law, he must pay the penalty; his spiritual powers are benumbed, and how can he perfect holiness in the fear of God?’ ”  Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 10; CME:46.2.

 

“Often the place set apart for God’s worship is desecrated by feasting and drinking, buying, selling, and merrymaking.  Respect for the House of God and reverence for His worship are lessened in the minds of the youth.  The barriers of self-restraint are weakened.  Selfishness, appetite, the love of display, are appealed to, and they strengthen as they are indulged.”  COL:54; 9T 91.

 

“Even the Church, which should be the pillar and ground of the truth, is found encouraging the selfish love of pleasure.  When money is to be raised for religious purposes, to what means do many churches resort?  To bazaars, suppers, fancy fairs, even to lotteries, and like devices.  Often the place set apart for God’s worship is desecrated by feasting and drinking, buying, selling, and merrymaking.  Respect for the House of God and reverence for His worship are lessened in the minds of the youth.  The barriers of self-restraint are weakened.  Selfishness, appetite, the love of display, are appealed to, and they strengthen as they are indulged.”  CSA:22.7.

 

“God does not mean that any of us should become hermits or monks and retire from the world in order to devote ourselves to acts of worship.  The life must be like Christ’s life -- between the mountain and the multitude.  He who does nothing but pray will soon cease to pray, or his prayers will become a formal routine. {SC:100-101; CSA:27.10}

 

“If we would but think of God as often as we have evidence of His care for us we should keep Him ever in our thoughts and should delight to talk of Him and to praise Him.  We talk of temporal things because we have an interest in them.  We talk of our friends because we love them; our joys and our sorrows are bound up with them.  Yet we have infinitely greater reason to love God than to love our earthly friends; it should be the most natural thing in the world to make Him first in all our thoughts, to talk of His goodness and tell of His power. {CSA:28.1}

 

“Our devotional exercises should not consist wholly in asking and receiving.  Let us not be always thinking of our wants and never of the benefits we receive.  We do not pray any too much, but we are too sparing of giving thanks.  We are the constant recipients of God’s mercies, and yet how little gratitude we express, how little we praise Him for what He has done for us. {CSA:28.2}

 

“Our God is a tender, merciful Father.  His service should not be looked upon as a heart-saddening, distressing exercise.  It should be a pleasure to worship the Lord and to take part in His work.” CSA:28.3.

 

“When they come to worship before the Lord, it should be with subdued and reverent hearts.  The House built for His worship is a sacred place, not a place for unholy feelings, malice, faultfinding, and bitterness of spirit.”  RH, Oct. 19, 1886; DG:243.

 

“God is High and Holy; and to the humble, believing soul, His house on earth, the place where His people meet for worship, is as the gate of Heaven.  The song of praise, the words spoken by Christ’s ministers, are God’s appointed agencies to prepare a people for the Church above, for that loftier worship into which there can enter nothing that is impure. . . God sees every irreverent thought or action, and it is registered in the Books of Heaven. . . Nothing is hid from His all-searching eye.  If you have formed in any degree the habit of inattention and indifference in the House of God, exercise the powers you have to correct it. . . Practice reverence until it becomes a part of yourself.”   FLB:188.

 

“The importance of the Sabbath as the memorial of creation is that it keeps ever present the true reason why worship is due to God, because He is the Creator, and we His creatures.  The Sabbath therefore lies at the very foundation of Divine worship; for It teaches this great truth in the most impressive manner, and no other institution does this.  The true ground of Divine worship, not of that on the seventh day merely, but of all worship, is found in the distinction between the Creator and His creatures.  This great fact can never become obsolete, and must never be forgotten.  It was to keep this truth ever before the minds of men, that God instituted the Sabbath in Eden; and so long as the fact that He is our Creator continues to be a reason why we should worship Him, so long the Sabbath will continue as Its sign and memorial.”  GC88:437-438; GC:437-438.

 

“Fathers and mothers are in duty bound to settle this question early so that the child will no more think of breaking the Sabbath, neglecting religious worship and family prayer than he would think of stealing.  Parents’ own hands must build the barrier.”  Manuscript 119, 1899; AH:320.3.

 

“God is high and holy; and to the humble, believing soul, His House on earth, the place where His people meet for worship, is as the gate of Heaven.  The song of praise, the words spoken by Christ’s ministers, are God’s appointed agencies to prepare a people for the Church above, for that loftier worship into which there can enter nothing that is impure, unholy.”  MYP:265. ML:286; PaM:175.

 

“The worship of God consists chiefly of praise and prayer.  Every follower of Christ should engage in this worship.  No one can sing by proxy, bear testimony by proxy, or pray by proxy.”  RH, January 1, 1880.

 

AND MANY MORE.