A question some Christians think but won’t admit publicly …

During a recent counseling session with a client — someone who is a devout Christian — the woman confessed a thought she has sometimes wrestled with.

What was it?

Why — she has sometimes wondered for but a moment — does God want to be worshiped?

I mean, that’s a big ask, a very big expectation, isn’t it?

We started with the fast, simple answer, but then made time to really explore the topic.

God wants and expects the worship of all living things because He, alone, is worthy of it. And He really is very worthy of it!

Until we begin to get a grip on that fundamental truth, we’ll never fully make sense of all of life, our purpose for existing, and understand how things can function properly.

That’s because God is the One who created each of us, and He did so for the specific purpose of our worshiping, glorifying, and enjoying Him. To fail at that is to fail at the single reason we exist.

My client wasn’t the first person, or first Christian, to have such a thought flit through their mind. However, with our wonderful albeit limited human minds, we routinely make the mistake of thinking of God the way we think of other people, of persistently trying to reduce God down to human terms. And when we do that, the question may arise of why God wants our worship. That question is prompted because we know it would be beyond arrogant or foolish for any human being to desire and seek the worship of others … although many have throughout our human history, and many still do.

But God isn’t a human being!

When we step back and look at who God IS, along with what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will still do, then it would be difficult to do anything other than worship Him! King David did just that — considered who God is, and as a result, he pubicly poured forth this prayer:

“Then David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly: ‘O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, may you be praised forever and ever! Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength. O our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name! But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us! We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. O Lord our God, even this material we have gathered to build a Temple to honor your holy name comes from you! It all belongs to you!” 1 Chronicles 29:10-16.

We so often talk about our relationship with God in a way that sounds like God is trying to get us to cooperate with Him. God isn’t seeking our cooperation, He’s seeking our adoration! And even though we were made to adore God, what He wants is the real thing, as described by Pastor Curry Pikkaart:

When that mighty ship sank with a loss of over 1,500 passengers, it was referred to as an act of God. Yet the reality is that the Titanic was allowed to sail with only 16 lifeboats – enough for only the ship’s crew – instead of the minimum 48 that had been recommended. If there had been 48 lifeboats there would have been no need to blame God!

So it is that we make the poor, we provoke war, we unleash hunger and death. Yet through it all God loves us with the dignity of choice. He knows that to compel love is not really to be loved, to compel worship is not really to be worshiped, to compel adoration is not really to be adored. They are but empty rituals of obedience. And God wants our obedience to rise from our love.

God demands and expects our adoration because He’s worthy of it. To know that, to understand that from the heart, requires the nurturing of our relationship with Him, getting to really know Him, and “see” Him for who He is. In knowing God, we can then offer up our worship and adoration of Him, the kind of worship Warren Wiersbe writes about in “The Integrity Crisis”:

True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don’t have to shop around for man-made substitutes. William Temple made this clear in his masterful definition of worship: For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose-and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

Even so, some people will refuse to worship God. That was humanity’s problem in the past, and remains our problem today:

“But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles,” Romans 1:18-23.

Adoration takes more than a “head knowledge” of someone because it comes from the heart, from a genuine relationship fueled by love. Is that the kind of adoring relationship you have with God?

Scotty