Worship God
by Abiding Love
Psalm 81:9-10 —
You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not worship any god other than me.
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
“Worship me!” I can remember rough housing with some older kids when I was young, and they wrestled me down on the ground by their feet and said, “Worship me!” It was just a boyish game, but still it felt demeaning to me to be forced at their feet to “worship”. I didn’t like it.
Sinners don’t always like to worship God either. Whether it is the heart that asks, “Do I have to go to church?” or the mind that thinks “What kind of God demands our worship?” as if God’s command is demeaning us like in that boyish game.
The root word for worship is is “worth”. Worship is about ascribing worth to something. It is declaring exactly how great of worth something or someone has in our hearts. The difference between a person and our God seeking our worship is that no person is worthy of such worth, but God is.
Worshipping God means remembering all that He has done for us and all that is ours through Him. As the Lord reminded Israel of their freedom from slavery and their entry into the promised land, so the Lord points us to Jesus’ redeeming work that freed us from the slavery of sin and death and purchased us an inheritance in heaven. Worshipping God isn’t demeaning, but it is reflecting and revelling in what We have in Him and rejoicing over it. Worshipping God does mean humbly confessing our dependence on Him, but it also means realizing that our souls and bodies find in Him complete satisfaction. Recognizing God’s great worth in our lives not only gives Him the glory, but it also brings us peace.
Hearts are built to worship. Sinful hearts are prone to place their worth and worship the created things of this world. God calls us to worship Him so that through the proclaiming of His Name we are brought to repent of those worldly things we have raised up too high, and we are brought to again hear the great news of the Gracious God and Savior that is ours.
Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only, dear friends.
Peace in Jesus,
Pastor John Gensmer
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