I would like to know more about the cost of true worship. Is there a cost for true worship?
The question is a little vague; it is not clear to me precisely what the one posing the question is asking. However, we will attempt to offer some insight from one perspective at least respecting the cost of true worship.
One important ingredient for truly worshipping God is the complete investment of one’s self into his or her Christianity. About 2,000 years ago, Christians in Macedonia, despite extreme poverty, voluntarily contributed from their meager means some funds to relieve the poor saints in Judaea. Once a child of God completely devotes himself to Christianity, dispensing with some of his material possessions is not a challenge.
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God. (2 Corinthians 8:1-5 NKJV)
So, one significant cost of true worship is one’s all submitted to God. This corresponds with the words of our Lord to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33).
In addition, part of the cost of true worship is giving back some of whatever blessings God provides. Christians ought to give “bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and weekly according to their prosperity (1 Corinthians 16:1-2). However, God has never been pleased with the refuse and castoffs (Malachi 1:6-14), and He views meager giving as robbery. “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings” (Malachi 3:8). Whereas in the New Testament, the amount of one’s giving is not specified, the willingness to give liberally of what one does have is part of the cost of true worship.
Furthermore, the cost of true worship involves worshipping God in the way in which He has specified that He wants to be worshipped. We must worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). This precludes worshipping God according to the whims and desires that we may have (Colossians 2:23). Worshipping God correctly costs one his own preferences in the act of worshipping God.
There was a time and there may come again a time and in some places in the world today it is the time in which choosing to worship God will cost a man or a woman his life. The meaning of Revelation 2:10 is to be faithful to Jesus Christ even if that faithfulness results in one being murdered. That certainly is a significant cost that one might bear for practicing true worship.
The cost of true worship may be varied. Whatever the cost of true worship, we must bear that cost, for nothing else matters as much as worshipping God now and preparing ourselves to worship God for eternity in heaven (Revelation 21:3; 22:3).
