Worship Only God

Chuckle: Bumper Sticker: "A word to the wise is sufficient; but who can remember the word!"

Quotable: "Genuine worship consists of humble adoration and devoted service."  --Unknown Source

"Get out of here, Satan," Jesus told him. "For the Scriptures say, 'You must worship the Lord your God; serve him only.'" (Matthew 4:10 NLT).

Please notice two words in our Matthew passage. "Worship" means to fall face-down to the ground before God in humble adoration; and "serve" means the outward actions which express an inward attitude of reverence and humility. In other words, worship is incomplete without service, and will never be pleasing to our God.

A.W. Tozer made this statement in his book, "The Pursuit of God:" "It [the new birth] is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end."

We can be certain that God is bigger than our finite minds could ever imagine or understand. As I thought about greatness of God, I was struck by the feeling that the magnificence of my God is often lost in the inadequacy of my worship. As we worship, I wonder how much of what we call worship is really a set of rituals and routines that make us feel better for another week rather than an experience that helps us grow in our knowledge and understanding of our indescribable God.

Often our worship at the altar of wealth, materialism, and pleasure is in direct competition with our worship of God. If there is anything that draws us away from continually exploring the depths of God's being, we can never worship in a way that honors God and brings pleasure to Him. The more we learn about our awesome God, the more we realize how much we don't know and the more we desire to learn of Him. Worship must begin by recognizing the "bigness" of God and proceed toward complete surrender to Him.

If you find yourself searching for and desiring what the world has to offer, the words of Jesus to Satan should come to mind: "You must worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." If our worship is too small for the size of our God, He wants to grow us to the point that our worship becomes increasingly more worthy of Him. As your worship pleases God, He will reveal more and more of Himself and help you become more spiritually mature and Christ-like.

Is your worship incomplete because you have reduced God to conform to your small mental image of Him? Are you committed to constantly exploring the depths of the Triune God who has no limit and no end? If so, your worship will become more and more pleasing to God.

Love, Jerry & Dotse