Devotion 1: Acceptable Worship
Hebrews chapter 12 shows us a powerful contrast. One side is Mount Sinai, a place of fear where God’s holiness kept people at a distance. The other is Mount Zion, the heavenly city, where people can come to God with confidence, joy, and hope. The author isn’t just telling history—he’s showing two very different ways of approaching God.
It is against this backdrop that we hear the invitation in Hebrews chapter 12, "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe" (Hebrews 12:28). The Greek word translated here as acceptable carries the meaning, “well-pleasing.” That word forces us to pause, because it raises an important question: what kind of worship is actually pleasing to God?
To answer that question, Scripture first clarifies what pleasing God is not. What pleases God is not primarily a matter of external performance. That is, worship is not made acceptable by impressive music, emotional intensity, sincerity, or careful execution. The issue, Scripture tells us, runs much deeper than outward expression. Paul points out this reality directly in Romans 8:8: "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." In other words, the problem is not that we try too little, but that apart from Christ, we are unable to offer anything truly pleasing to God at all. Left to ourselves, acceptable worship is beyond our reach.
However, this is precisely where the good news of the gospel speaks its liberating word. The marvelous mystery revealed in Christ is not only the forgiveness of sin (though it is certainly that), but also the unveiling of an entirely new way of life. Through Jesus, we are invited out of fear and judgment and into reconciliation by grace through faith. Hebrews reminds us that we enter into this reconciliation not through a mountain that burns with fire, but through Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, whose own blood speaks a "better word" (Hebrews 12:24).
Because of Christ, pleasing God is not about what we can achieve through our own effort or strength. As Paul explains in Ephesians, the life that pleases God is one in which believers walk as children of light, learning to discern what is pleasing to the Lord (Ephesians 5:1–10). This kind of life (marked by love, holiness, and truth) is not an attempt to earn God’s favor, but the fruit of belonging to Him. It is the posture of someone who has already been welcomed into God’s family.
The book of Hebrews brings this truth to a beautiful conclusion with a benediction that gathers everything together, "Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 13:20–21). What God desires, He Himself provides. What God calls pleasing, He graciously works in us through Christ for His glory.
Finally, this brings us back to Hebrews 12:28. Acceptable, or well-pleasing, worship is not something we manufacture and present to God. It is the natural response of those who know and understand what they have truly been given in His gift of grace. We worship with gratitude because we have received an unshakable kingdom. We worship with reverence and awe because the God who welcomes us is holy! We worship with confidence because Christ Himself mediates our approach to God and transforms our lives.
True worship flows not from self-achievement or performance, but from a grateful heart formed by grace. When we know the gift we have received, worship becomes our joyful and fitting response to our holy and righteous God.