O’ come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! Psalm 95:6
Mankind was created in the image of God to be worshipers of God – of the one true God – to pursue and experience our greatest joy, our greatest pleasure, our ultimate satisfaction and significance in knowing intimately, loving supremely being unfailingly loved by God under His fatherly rule and authority (Revelation 4:11) (Isaiah 43:7) (Psalm 16:11) (Isaiah 45:5-7).
It’s no accident that the longest book in the Bible, Psalms, with its 150 Chapters, is primarily about the worship of the one true God such as Psalm 29:1-2 wherein we read, Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness – holiness referring to that which sets God above and apart from His creation in the perfection of His being.
When we get to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, we see a worshiping multitude, that no man can number, redeemed men and women now in Heaven, as well as the holy angels bowed down before the throne of the eternal God, worshiping, proclaiming and praising His greatness, His goodness, His wisdom, His power, His justice and the glory of His grace as being the only reason they are there (Revelation 7:9-11) (Revelation 4:10-11) (Revelation 5:8-14) (Ephesians 1:3-7).
The term worship literally means to bow down, signifying homage or humble submission to and dependence upon the person, or object of our worship.
We worship – we center our life around that which we love, desire and long for most- that which we believe will bring us our greatest joy, pleasure, satisfaction and fulfillment. Thus, worship is directed toward the person or object that we believe to be most necessary, essential for our immediate or sustained pleasure, happiness and wellbeing.
Worship is expressed in thoughts and words of praise, admiration and adoration as well as in deeds of love and gratitude toward that which we find most valuable – most excellent, most necessary to our joy in life (I can’t live without him/her/it).
Worship declares to the object of our worship the love and desire and longing and joy that we have in our heart for them or it. It is expressed in a lifestyle of giving our time, attention, energy, talents and treasure in pursuit of enjoying – of possessing or being possessed by that which we worship.
Worship may be expressed in our passionate or obsessive devotion to, identification with and conformity of our being to that which we worship.
Know this for certain, we are all worshipers of something or someone, and the object of our worship in this life will determine our eternal destiny in the next (Daniel 12:1-2).
Tragically, the Bible reveals that mankind has rejected both God’s purpose for and rule over our lives and instead of worshiping the one true God, we have set our hearts and given our lives over to “gods” of our own making; gods devised out of our own imagination, gods inspired by demonic influence, or things in God’s creation we believe will bring us greater joy, greater pleasure, greater fulfillment and satisfaction than the God of the Bible, all of what the Bible refers to as idols (Isaiah 2:8) (Jeremiah 16:20) (Isaiah 44:9-10) (Jeremiah 16:11) .
When we think of idols, we think of them mostly as inanimate objects which people venerate or pray to. However, from a Biblical perspective idols can include money and material possessions, or personal fame and success, or pleasure and comfort, or a person or persons that we have determined in our heart to be of more value or of greater necessity to us then the infinitely glorious God.
The sin of idolatry is essentially the rejection of God as our greatest good – as the object of our deepest love and source and substance of our eternal joy – and then replacing Him in our heart and lives with someone or something from His creation, including ourselves (Jeremiah 2:11-13).
It is a sin found throughout the Bible, beginning in the Old Testament with Adam’s and Eve’s worship of the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden and the associated promise of being like God, who was and is alone to be worshiped. This resulted in mankind being exiled – cut off from the glorious life with God for which we were created, what the Bible refers to as death (Genesis 2:16-17) (Genesis 3:1-6) (Luke 4:8). The pervasiveness of idolatry throughout human history and God’s judgement on it are summarized in Romans 1:18-32.
Puritan writer David Clarkston in his treatise titled “Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven” describes idolatry as occurring when anything is more valued in our hearts and affections than God, more desired than God, more sought after than God, more loved than God.
We commit the sin of idolatry when – as David Clarkston notes – we love and center our life around or upon someone or something other than the one true God. It can be essentially good things like our children, our spouse or job – or neutral things like money, fame or power – or things which are innately evil like illegal drugs or sex outside of marriage. We engage in self-worship or self-idolatry when we see our time, our money, our body, our talents and achievements as inherently ours rather than gifts from a good and gracious God that are given to be displayed for His glory, honor and praise and to inspire our worship of Him (James 1:17) (1 Corinthians 4:7) (John 12:23) (Psalm 145:1-3).
The sin of idolatry is essentially a violation of the first four commandments in the Bible, and is found in the hearts of all men, women and children to varying degrees (Exodus 20:1-11) (Jeremiah 17:9). And until we embrace and pursue the triune God, revealed to us in the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ, as the object of our worship – the object of our deepest love and source of our greatest joy, we will remain under God’s just judgement for it (Revelation 21:8) (Ephesians 5:5).
More in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×
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