Worship: YES WE CAN!!

This is an excerpt from the Doctrine and Covenants institute manual.


The word worship comes from two Anglo-Saxon words: weorth, worthy, and scipe, state or condition. The Lord deserves to be worshiped because His condition is a worthy one. Elder James E. Talmage said: “The worship of which one is capable depends upon his comprehension of the worthiness characterizing the object of his reverence. Man’s capacity for worship is a measure of his comprehension of God.” ( Articles of Faith, pp. 395–96.)

We worship to express our feelings about divine things. If we have reverence for God’s truth and grace and desire to be like Him, we can worship Him by keeping His commandments. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained:

“To worship the Lord is to follow after him, to seek his face, to believe his doctrine, and to think his thoughts.

“It is to walk in his paths, to be baptized as Christ was, to preach that gospel of the kingdom which fell from his lips, and to heal the sick and raise the dead as he did.

“To worship the Lord is to put first in our lives the things of his kingdom, to live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, to center our whole hearts upon Christ and that salvation which comes because of him.

“It is to walk in the light as he is in the light, to do the things that he wants done, to do what he would do under similar circumstances, to be as he is.

“To worship the Lord is to walk in the Spirit, to rise above carnal things, to bridle our passions, and to overcome the world.

“It is to pay our tithes and offerings, to act as wise stewards in caring for those things which have been entrusted to our care, and to use our talents and means for the spreading of truth and the building up of his kingdom.

“To worship the Lord is to be married in the temple, to have children, to teach them the gospel, and to bring them up in light and truth.

“It is to perfect the family unit, to honor our father and our mother; it is for a man to love his wife with all his heart and to cleave unto her and none else.

“To worship the Lord is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.

“It is to work on a welfare project, to administer to the sick, to go on a mission, to go home teaching, and to hold family home evening.

“To worship the Lord is to study the gospel, to treasure up light and truth, to ponder in our hearts the things of his kingdom, and to make them part of our lives.

“It is to pray with all the energy of our souls, to preach by the power of the Spirit, to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving.

“To worship is to work, to be actively engaged in a good cause, to be about our Father’s business, to love and serve our fellowmen.

“It is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to comfort those that mourn, and to hold up the hands that hang down and to strengthen the feeble knees.

“To worship the Lord is to stand valiantly in the cause of truth and righteousness, to let our influence for good be felt in civic, cultural, educational, and governmental fields, and to support those laws and principles which further the Lord’s interests on earth.

“To worship the Lord is to be of good cheer, to be courageous, to be valiant, to have the courage of our God-given convictions, and to keep the faith.

“It is ten thousand times ten thousand things. It is keeping the commandments of God. It is living the whole law of the whole gospel.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1971, pp. 168–69; or Ensign, Dec. 1971, p. 130 .)