Nehemiah 9:1

 Nehemiah 9:1 says, Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them.  On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month the people had humbled themselves.  They did so by fasting, wearing sackcloth, and covering themselves with dirt.  This was symbolic of how they viewed themselves in comparison to God.  We may not go to this extreme today when we worship God, but we need to still know that we are worthless before God of our own merit.  Until we are willing to humble ourselves before God, we cannot truly worship Him. 

Verse two adds, And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.  The people of Israel then separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the sins of their fathers to God.  I don’t believe we are to physically separate ourselves from non-believers as Christians, since we cannot reach them with the gospel if we do, but we are to spiritually separate ourselves from the world.   Also, we only have to confess our sins to God and not those of others, since each individual must confess their own sins in order to be saved. 

Verse three continues, And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the Lord their God.  For a fourth of the day, they read God’s book of law and for another fourth of the day they confessed and worshipped God.  We might have left after an hour or two, or tuned out if we didn’t, but worship service should still consist of reading and learning God’s word and confessing our sins to Him and worshipping and singing praises to God.  Worship should be something we enjoy and not something that can't be over quick enough.