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Back to School Resource Guide
Look Up—and Bow Down
What Is Reverence?
Reverence, simply put, “implies profound respect mingled with love, devotion, or awe.”1 Reverence can be shown to a leader you respect, a set of ideals you hold to, or a certain establishment you believe in. We should revere the institution of marriage, for example. Even nonreligious people show reverence for people and ideas when they sacrifice their time and resources for them.
Let’s define Christian reverence as follows: Reverence is a humble faith in and submission to the reality of God’s holiness, splendor, and goodness.
Reverence toward God is more than mere respect. It involves a fundamental humility and self-forgetfulness—a sense that God is more important and greater than we are. Reverence is not just a nod; it’s a bow.
Is reverence vital to the life of a believer? Jonathan Edwards says that “a true and faithful Christian does not make holy living a mere incidental thing, but it is his great concern. As the business of the soldier is to fight, so the business of the Christian is to be like Christ.”2 This Christian business includes reverence toward God.
Stand in Awe
Laura Story
Sharing her 20 years of experience as a worship leader and award-winning recording artist, Laura Story shows readers how to engage in scriptural, reverential worship on Sunday mornings and during the other 6 days of the week.
Renewing a Forgotten Virtue
What does such bowing look like in a culture that prizes self-exaltation and autonomy? No matter how you define reverence, it’s easy to see that we live in an increasingly irreverent time. Paul Woodruff writes about reverence from a secular perspective, but he still lends great insight:
Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations. From this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control—God, truth, justice, nature, even death. . . . Reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.3
One of the reasons we see reverence on the decline is our culture’s mantra “Be anything you want to be.” It’s almost offensive in our current day to suggest that we might be created with any sort of limitations or obligations. But this recognition is the first step of reverence.
Woodruff continues to identify all that falls apart whenever reverence fails, citing everything from the disappearance of the ritual of family dinner to the devaluing of life and the endless warring between countries.4 But it’s not just the larger things such as warring nations. We see irreverence in the wedding guest who shows up without sending in an RSVP or the blind date who ghosts you after months of texting. We see irreverence in the way people disrespect their parents, the elderly, or anyone else in authority over them. We see irreverence in the ease with which many people break off their commitments or refuse to make them in the first place. We have no obligations to others, and we expect no common courtesy of ourselves. With no social conventions to live by, no obligation except our personal fulfillment, there is nothing that compels us to show reverence.
Studies have shown a decline in reverence toward God and his word. According to the American Bible Society, while around 50 percent of adults read their Bibles at least three times a year in 2011, only 38 percent reported doing so in 2024.5 Not only are we seeing a decline in Bible readership, but we also see a decline in reverence toward God’s word itself. In the same survey, only 37 percent of those polled believe God’s word to be inerrant, with 24 percent believing the Bible to be “just another book of teachings . . . and advice.”6 These studies, combined with another showing that only 44 percent of US adults believe that “there are clear standards for what is right and wrong,”7 reflect our culture’s lack of respect for the authority of Scripture.
Do we have a deficit of reverence in our day? Yes. But is this deficit the root problem? Sure, many of us miss the good old days of chivalry, common courtesy, and respect for the elderly. Many good things result from a culture of reverence, but a lack of these cultural habits is only the outward symptom of a greater internal problem. Unsurprisingly, the root problem is a heart issue.
Consider Woodruff’s words from earlier: Reverence “keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.”8 Irreverence is rooted in idolatry. The solution to idolatry is a pursuit of the Lord. In Jeremiah 24:7, God offers this solution to Israel: “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.” When we genuinely seek to know God as he is revealed in Scripture and to love him rightly, reverence is the result.
Our most irreverent moments are those in which we are trying to possess virtues and abilities that belong solely to God. Though this dynamic shows up in many areas, let’s consider two examples of how we fail to revere God by trying to be God: our desire for adoration and our desire for control.
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Longing for Adoration
How respectful are you? Maybe you’re someone who wears a sport coat to church every Sunday and takes off your cap as soon as you sit down at the dinner table. Perhaps you always hold the door open for the elderly lady walking behind you. Maybe you’re bristling a bit at even the mere suggestion that you might be less reverent than you think. But consider this question: Do you long to be recognized? Does it fill your emotional tank every time a prominent person mentions your name or someone brings up something positive about you in a conversation that causes others to say, “I didn’t know you were so smart” or “accomplished” or “successful” and so on? And then you get to brush it off as though you are embarrassed, but inside, you’ve been waiting for that “attaboy” for months! What is it about us that longs for adoration?
Grasping at Control
Maybe you aren’t someone who likes being in the limelight. Perhaps the way you express heart irreverence is clamoring for control over your life and the lives of others that should belong to God alone. Consider the rich young ruler of Mark 10. He asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus responded by pointing out God’s law, reciting commandments such as not stealing, not lying, and honoring parents. The rich young ruler replied, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth” (Mark 10:20)—which I think was a pretty generous assessment of himself. Then Jesus hit him where it hurt: “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mark 10:21).
If you are familiar with this story, you know that the young man walked away from Jesus at that moment, sorrowful and unwilling to follow his request (Mark 10:22). What kept this man from giving away all he owned? And what plagues each of us who struggles with tight fists when it comes to our resources? Money appears to satisfy our longing to be in control—of our futures, our retirement plans, our quality of life, and so on.
But how is clamoring for control a form of irreverence? When we seek control over our lives, we elevate self and demean God. We crave control because we forget the only one who is actually in control. We think if we don’t have control, then no one will. But when our view of God is great, we can rest in his constant love and care. We can be radically generous with our time and resources for his glory, knowing that even if we lose everything, our true gain is greater.
When we genuinely seek to know God as he is revealed in Scripture and to love him rightly, reverence is the result.
The Object of Our Reverence
Whenever I have the opportunity to talk with younger worship leaders about service planning, I often share my story of visiting the Hope Diamond. This 45.52-karat gem resides in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. I visited it for the first time back in college and was truly captivated by its size and beauty. If you worked at this museum and were tasked with displaying this diamond, what would you do? Maybe set up a big neon sign that reads, Hope Diamond! This Thing Is Awesome! Or would you perhaps put it in a very colorful enclosure that sparkles? Maybe use strobe lights or a disco ball to make it glisten? Of course not. We don’t need to add to the splendor of this spectacle. The Hope Diamond is displayed in a simple, clear case with basic lighting, enough to merely facilitate its viewing. You don’t need to bedazzle the Hope Diamond; it’s the Hope Diamond!
Jesus Christ is the object of our reverence and worship. When we see the Lord as he is revealed in his word and are willing to know him as he is, reverence will be our response. When we are leading others to worship God, we don’t need cute gimmicks. We merely point directly and clearly to him—no filters needed. Reverence becomes the only logical response for a believer both in worship and in life.
Look Up; Bow Down
So what is reverence? Let me restate our definition before we move on: Reverence is a humble faith in and submission to the reality of God’s holiness, splendor, and goodness.
Reverence ought to characterize the Christian life as a whole. It is both the entry point to relating to God rightly and the sustaining fuel of our faith. We can summarize this in four short words: Look up. Bow down. We look to God to see him as he is, as he has revealed himself in Scripture, and then we respond with adoration, faith, and surrender. We see how holy he is and recognize how unholy we are. We see how mighty are the works of his hands, so we submit our hands, hearts, and lives to his purposes. The whole of the Christian life is looking up to his greatness and responding in reverence. May this ever be our posture and our practice.
Reverence isn’t just one of the many virtues that God desires to grow in his people; it’s the starting point for any true and lasting work God longs to do in and through us.
Notes:
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary, under “reverence,” accessed June 23, 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
- Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits: Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life, ed. Tryon Edwards (Banner of Truth, 1969), 249.
- Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2014), 1.
- Woodruff, Reverence, 10–11.
- Jeffery Fulks, Randy Peterson, John Farquhar Plake, and Sandra Siggins, State of the Bible: USA 2025 (American Bible Society, 2025), 3.
- Fulks, Peterson, Plake, and Siggins, State of the Bible, 18.
- 2023–24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study Interactive Database (Pew Research Center, February 26, 2025), https://www.pewresearch.org/.
- Woodruff, Reverence, 1.
Laura Story is the author of Stand in Awe: How Reverence Transforms Our Worship and Our Lives.
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