How adoration is expressed will vary from person to person, but the Bible shows us 4 common ways of expressing adoration when encountering God.
Removing Footwear
When God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush, He commanded Moses to ‘take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ (Ex 3:5) When the commander of the army of the Lord appeared before Joshua in Joshua 5, Joshua’s response to the holiness of God was to fall facedown before him in reverence (Josh 5:14) and the commander’s reply was the same as to Moses: ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ (Joshua 5:15) Adoration is a response to the holiness of God, to the ‘otherness’ of God, to the fact that God is so different to us. Removing footwear was a sign of respect; bowing down in prostration is another sign of respect.
Falling Facedown
When God appeared to Abram, renewing the covenant He had made with him, Abram fell facedown (Gen 17:3). When David and his men looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem, about to exact justice because of their sin, he repented and fell facedown (1 Chron 21:16). When Ezekiel first saw the glory of the Lord, he fell facedown (Ezek 1:28). When the disciples witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus and heard the voice of God from the cloud saying ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’, they fell facedown (Matt 17:5-6). When John encounters the risen Christ on the island of Patmos and has that vision of the Holy One described for us in Revelation 1:13-16, he falls on his face as though dead (Rev 1:17). God is so awesome and majestic, that when we encounter Him, we fall down in awe, in fear and trembling.
Kneeling & Bowing Down
This is the common posture for prayer. When we encounter God in all His brilliance, majesty and might, we are instantly aware of His greatness and our insignificance in comparison. The psalmist captures our response when he says ‘When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?’ (Ps 8:3-4) Bowing down, kneeling down, falling facedown are responses to this might and majesty that acknowledge God’s greatness and our lowliness at the same time. Ps 95:6-7 says ‘Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.’ The Israelites were constantly warned of the danger of bowing down to false gods or idols (see Is 44:15, 17, 19; Is 46:6) because this is a way of showing respect and worship which idols don’t deserve!
The Wise Men brought gifts to Jesus and bowed down (Matt 2:11) and Satan himself knew the significance of bowing down, for he tempted Jesus with the words ‘“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”’ (Matt 4:9) Nebuchadnezzar had issued similar orders to bow down to the statue of gold (see Dan 3:5-6) and Jesus Himself knelt down as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:41-44) and then fell with His face to the ground as He prayed for the cup to be removed from Him (Matt 26:38-39). He showed us that prayer involves our whole being, our body as well as our mind and words.
Adoration is something we need to cultivate every single day of our lives. As we grow in appreciation of all God is and all He has done, as we fix our eyes upon God and meditate on His love, His power, His wisdom, when we truly think about who God is and what He has done for us, we will be filled with love and will naturally adore Him. The only things which stop us adoring God are hearts that are cold, lifestyles that are too busy to pause in wonder, and indifference to who God is and what He has done. To all who are grateful for God’s mercy and grace, adoration is the natural response. We want nothing more than God. (‘Nothing More’, Aaron Shust)