If there were a God, what would the right human attitude to God be? The unreflective and generally assumed answer is ‘worship’. But what exactly is worship? What attitude is being mandated by the claim that human beings owe the deity worship? Furthermore, both Judaism and Christianity represent the relationship God desires with human persons as intimate and joyful. But worship is often understood as a recognition of God’s transcendent greatness. Could recognition of one’s distance from God be compatible with joyful closeness to God? In this paper, I explore these questions by examining the understanding of worship given by Aquinas and Calvin. I argue that the answers to these questions not only illuminate the nature of worship but also make a difference to our understanding of the notion of the true self.