What is Adoration? | D.L. Moody
Adoration has been defined as the act of rendering divine honor, including in it reverence, esteem, and love. Adoration literally signifies applying the hand to the mouth, “to kiss the hand.”
In Eastern countries, this is one of the great marks of respect and submission. The importance of coming before God in this spirit is great, and thus it is so often impressed upon us in the Word of God.
In The Lord’s Prayer: A Practical Meditation, Newman Hall said, “Man’s worship, apart from revelation, has been uniformly characterized by selfishness.
We come to God either to thank Him for benefits already received, or to implore still further benefits: food, raiment [clothing], health, safety, comfort.”
He said, like Jacob at Bethel, we tend to correlate the worship we offer to God with having food to eat and clothing to put on. “This style of petition, in which self generally precedes and predominates, if it does not altogether absorb, our supplications, is not only seen in the votaries [devoted followers] of false systems, but in the majority of the prayers of professed Christians,” Hall said.
He suggested our prayers are like the Parthian horsemen, who ride one way while they look another way. “We seem to go toward God, but, indeed, reflect upon ourselves, and this may be the reason why many times our prayers are sent forth, like the raven out of Noah’s ark, and never return.
But when we make the glory of God the chief end of our devotion, they go forth like the dove, and return to us again with an olive branch.”
