A Quote by Swami Vivekananda

Those reformers who preach against image-worship, or what they denounce as idolatry - to them I say "Brothers, if you are fit to worship God-without-form discarding all external help, do so, but why do you condemn others who cannot do the same?"

Swami Vivekananda

Quote Topics

Against Brothers Cannot Condemn Denounce External Fit Form God Help Idolatry Image Others Preach Reformers Same Say Them Those Why Without Worship Worship God

Quote Author

Swami Vivekananda
Indian - Priest
January 12, 1863 - July 4, 1902

Worship is not music. We can certainly worship Him without musicians and without a song. And by the way, God does not actually seek worship. The Word tells us that He seeks worshippers. He's not looking for those who make the most beautiful music. He's looking for those who worship in spirit ... and in truth. Music is only one of the ways that he has ordained for us to express our worship. Yet too many worship leaders today spend more time honing their craft and planning / rehearsing their worship sets, than they spend on their face, alone in worship.

Steven Rice

The man who has the sense of the body being himself cannot possibly worship God as formless; whatever worship he makes will be worship in form alone, not otherwise.

Ramana Maharshi

In former times, God, who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake.

John of Damascus

For me, my stories are spiritual journeys, and whenever I write, it's a form of worship. It's a form of my worship. Worship is not just Sunday morning as we all know. Worship is everything we do. Writing is most definitely a form of worship for me and, God as I'm writing, He takes me on these journeys.

Tamera Alexander

God is not a person at all. You cannot worship God. You can live in a godly way but you cannot worship God - there is nobody to worship. All your worship is sheer stupidity, all your images of God are your own creation. There is no God as such, but there is godliness, certainly - in the flowers, in the birds, in the stars, in the eyes of the people, when a song arises in the heart and poetry surrounds you... all this is God. Let us say `godliness` rather than using the word `God` - that word gives you the idea of a person, and God is not a person but a presence.

Rajneesh

To worship God 'in spirit and in truth' is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (Hebrews 8:13). Christian worship is new covenant worship; it is gospel-inspired worship; it is Christ-centered worship; it is cross-focused worship.

D. A. Carson

When we, believers, sing our songs of worship, not only do we praise God through them, but we preach to ourselves. As we sing the truth of who it is we're worshipping, as well as honoring God, it can be so helpful to us. Worship is about magnifying the right things. It can be so easy to let the struggles of this become all consuming, and we must not ignore them. But when we worship, instead of magnifying and focusing on those things, we magnify and focus on the name, the strength, the power, the grace of Jesus. When we do that, it puts everything into perspective.

Matt Redman

When exhaling this air, we announced Jesus Christ risen by the same Spirit. No one can live without breathing. It is the same for the Christian: without praise and mission there is not Christian life. And with praise, worship. We rarely speak about worship. What do we do when we pray? We ask things of God, we give thanks. But worshipping and adoring God is part of breathing - praise and worship.

Pope Francis

The God of Islam is not the same God of the Judaeo-Christian faith. The God that we worship in Christianity is a God that has a Son. To Islam, that is blasphemy, to say that God has a son. Therefore, they do not worship the God that we worship.

Franklin Graham

This sense of being made in God's image calls us all constantly to look for it in others and to do what we can to help them acknowledge it and to realize it by joining in worship. We thereby carry to others the answer to their inmost longing, a yearning for union with the Trinity, a thirst to respond with adoration to the God who made them.

Marva Dawn

Jesus Christ was God - the Personal God become man. He has manifested Himself many times in different forms and these alone are what you can worship. God in His absolute nature is not to be worshipped. Worshipping such God would be nonsense. We have to worship Jesus Christ, the human manifestation, as God. You cannot worship anything higher than the manifestation of God. The sooner you give up the worship of God separate from Christ, the better for you.

Swami Vivekananda

Worship is not an external activity precipitated by the right environment. To worship in spirit is to draw near to God with an undivided heart. We must come in full agreement without hiding anything or disregarding His will.

Erwin W. Lutzer

If you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring his infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too. Thus worship leads to witness, and witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle.

John Stott

If somebody postulates the existence of more than one god, I would have to say we don't worship the same god. If somebody says that God is basically one with the world, I would also have to say we don't worship the same god.