When Worship Becomes Economics: The Hidden Cost of Not Treasuring Jesus
- Zachary Acosta
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
The Crisis We're Not Talking About
There's a problem in the modern worship movement that rarely gets addressed from the platform: we've mastered the mechanics of worship while losing the heart of valuation. We know how to build setlists, craft atmospheres, and execute seamless transitions—but somewhere between the soundcheck and the altar call, we stopped asking the most fundamental question: What is Jesus actually worth to me right now?
This isn't about musical excellence or theological precision. It's about something far more personal and potentially unsettling: the economic reality of our devotion.
The Marketplace of the Heart
Jesus spoke in economic terms when He taught about treasure in Matthew 6:21. He understood something profound about human nature: we don't just invest our resources in what we value, our investments reveal what we actually value, regardless of what we claim.
The worship economy works exactly like any other marketplace. We allocate our most precious resources - time, attention, emotional energy, mental space — toward what we perceive as valuable. And here's the uncomfortable truth: you can audit someone's spiritual treasure by examining their resource allocation.
What Are You Actually Spending?
Consider these diagnostic questions:
When you have 30 minutes of unexpected free time, where does your mind naturally wander?
What do you think about in the car when there's no podcast playing?
When you're stressed, what comfort do you reach for first?
What would you be unwilling to give up, even if God asked?
These aren't trick questions designed to produce guilt. They're spiritual economic indicators. In the marketplace of your heart, what's currently carrying the highest value?
The Compound Interest of Beholding
Here's where houses of prayer offer something revolutionary to the broader church: sustained gazing produces exponential returns.
In traditional church settings, we've trained people to expect worship to be a 20-30 minute experience—a burst of emotional engagement before the "real" content (the sermon). But those who practice extended worship and prayer discover something the brief encounter can never produce: compound revelation.
When you sing "Worthy is the Lamb" for three minutes, you make a declaration. When you sing it for thirty minutes, meditation begins. When you return to it day after day, week after week, something shifts in your spiritual economy, Jesus stops being an idea you affirm and becomes a treasure you're actively mining.
The Practice of Prolonged Valuation
The mystics understood this. So did the desert fathers. And it's why the four living creatures in Revelation 4 never stop their declaration, they're not stuck in religious routine; they're experiencing continuous discovery of infinite worth.
Extended worship isn't about endurance; it's about investment. Each moment of sustained attention is a deposit into a revelation account that pays eternal dividends. This is why prayer rooms exist—not as monuments to spiritual performance, but as laboratories for sustained valuation.
When Familiarity Breeds Devaluation
One of the most dangerous positions in the kingdom is proximity without treasure. You can stand closest to glory and see it least.
Think about the Louvre security guards who walk past priceless masterpieces every single day. After the ten-thousandth time seeing the Mona Lisa, it becomes wallpaper—something to walk around rather than something to behold. This is the occupational hazard of anyone in ministry, particularly worship ministry.
The Worship Leader's Dilemma
You can lead a hundred worship sets while your heart grows increasingly distant from the One you're singing about. You can:
Know all the right theology without treasuring the Person
Execute perfectly without encountering presence
Stir others while remaining unmoved yourself
Build a reputation for leading worship while losing your first love
This is why Jesus' warning to Ephesus in Revelation 2 is so devastating: "You've persevered, you've tested false apostles, you haven't grown weary—but you've abandoned your first love." They had orthodoxy, endurance, and discernment. They had everything except treasure.
The Prophetic Test: Does Your Worship Create Worshipers?
Here's a diagnostic for anyone leading worship or prayer: Your revelation becomes contagious only when it's genuine.
In Revelation 5, worship spreads like fire because each group is genuinely seeing something. The elders see and respond. The angels hear them and join. All creation picks up the song. It's antiphonal or responsive not because it's choreographed, but because true seeing produces inevitable singing.
Contrast this with what often happens in our gatherings: we manufacture momentum hoping to produce encounter, when the biblical pattern is encounter producing momentum.
The Difference Is Obvious
When someone is genuinely beholding Jesus:
Their worship continues after the set ends
They pull others into their revelation rather than their performance
They're content with silence because His presence is enough
They'd rather repeat a revelatory moment than move to something novel
Their private devotion looks remarkably like their public ministry
When someone is operating from routine:
Worship is compartmentalized to specific times and settings
They need constant variety to stay engaged
They're uncomfortable with silence
They're bored with repetition
Their private life looks nothing like their public persona
The Scarcity Principle in Reverse
We talked about how scarcity increases value—there's only one Jesus, making Him infinitely precious. But here's the prophetic tension: while Jesus is scarce in His uniqueness, access to Him is abundant.
This should revolutionize how we approach worship. We're not trying to manufacture rare encounters with a distant deity. We're learning to recognize the continuous availability of an infinitely worthy One.
The crisis isn't that Jesus is hard to find. The crisis is that we've become satisfied with substitutes.
What Are You Substituting?
The human heart will treasure something. If it's not Jesus, it will be:
The approval of others
The achievement of ministry goals
The aesthetic of the worship experience
The emotional high of corporate singing
The identity of being "a worshiper"
The community itself rather than the One who gathers it
These aren't inherently evil, but they're infinitely inferior investments. They're penny stocks in a market where gold is freely available.
The Utility Question: What Can Jesus Actually Do?
One of the most practical aspects of valuing Jesus is recognizing His utility—not in a manipulative "what can You do for me" sense, but in honest recognition that He is supremely effective at what we need most.
He Actually Fixes What's Broken
Other solutions provide:
Temporary relief (entertainment, substances, relationships)
Partial healing (therapy, self-help, positive thinking)
Masked symptoms (busyness, achievement, distraction)
Jesus provides:
Complete redemption
Actual transformation
Renewed identity
Restored relationship with the Father
Eternal resolution
This isn't motivational speaking; it's economic reality. When you compare the return on investment, nothing else comes close.
The Personal Attachment Factor: Your Unique History With God
Here's something that can't be replicated: your specific story with Jesus.
No angel can worship from your testimony. They didn't experience salvation. They can marvel at redemption, but they can't sing from the personal reality of being pulled from the pit.
This is your competitive advantage in worship—not musical skill, not theological knowledge, not charismatic gifting—but your unrepeatable history with God.
Mining Your Story
What has Jesus specifically done for you that makes Him worthy of your treasure?
What sin did He save you from?
What darkness did He pull you out of?
What lie did He replace with truth?
What relationship did He restore?
What purpose did He reveal?
These aren't generic talking points; they're your personal proof of His worth. And when you worship from this place, you're not trying to manufacture emotion—you're simply remembering reality.
The Call: Reorder Your Spiritual Economy
The application isn't complicated: audit your treasure and reallocate accordingly.
Practical Reordering
Morning Investment: Before scrolling, before coffee, before the urgent—spend the first moments of consciousness directing your attention toward Jesus. Not because it earns favor, but because it trains your heart where to find treasure.
Attention Audit: Track where your thoughts drift during idle moments. Are they rehearsing anxieties? Replaying conversations? Planning futures? Gently redirect them toward Him. Not as religious duty, but as treasure-seeking.
Corporate Engagement: Come to worship gatherings prepared to invest, not just receive. Ask beforehand: "What do I value about Jesus right now that I can declare?" Let your revelation provoke others.
Monotony Management: When worship feels routine, don't move to something novel—dig deeper into what's familiar. The treasure is in the depth, not the variety.
Relationship Over Routine: If your prayer time feels like checking a box, stop and ask: "Am I trying to maintain a schedule or pursue a Person?" One is discipline; the other is devotion.
The End-Times Dimension: Worship That Ushers His Return
Here's the eschatological weight of this conversation: the worship that ushers Jesus back to earth won't be manufactured hype or choreographed excellence. It will be the genuine cry of a Bride who has learned to treasure her Bridegroom above all else.
Isaiah 42 describes nations singing from the ends of the earth, and that song provokes the Lord to "stir Himself" and establish justice. Revelation shows us a worship movement that doesn't fade but intensifies—not through human effort, but through increasing revelation of His worth.
We're not building prayer rooms to maintain a religious tradition. We're establishing outposts of an eternal reality, training grounds for hearts that will sing this song forever.
Conclusion: The Question That Changes Everything
Let's return to where we started: What is Jesus actually worth to you right now?
Not in theory. Not in theology. Not in what you know you're supposed to say.
Right now, in the reality of your heart's economy, where does Jesus rank?
Because here's the promise and the warning: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Your heart follows your investment. So if you want to love Jesus more, treasure Him more. And if you want to treasure Him more, invest more—more time, more attention, more meditation, more worship, more surrender.
The return is infinite. The opportunity is now. And the invitation is always the same:
Behold the Lamb. See Him. Value Him. Treasure Him.
Then watch what happens when your heart follows your investment home.
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