worship: suffering or exploding?

"Worship always suffers when man is exalted and God is belittled. If you remove the fact that you’re a sinner, if you elevate yourself to a more righteously entitled place, if you exalt yourself and think, “I’m not really all that bad; I’m kind of a good person,” then your worship is going to suffer...

...As Thomas Merton powerfully writes, “When sin becomes bitter, then Christ becomes sweet.” Worship explodes from the nucleus of that reality, when the gospel truly informs our worship...

...[We are called to worship] in “spirit” and in “truth”—from hearts inflamed through minds informed by the revealed Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit. By illuminating the text, the Spirit inflames our heart. And the inflamed heart then creates energy for the growing mind. Our intellect is not at odds with our faith, nor our faith at odds with our intellect. Understanding God’s nature in a deep way should lead to an emotive response that creates an even deeper hunger to meditate on Him all the more. The mind and the heart feed each other."