When you hear the word “worship” what do you think of? Do you think of singing songs to Jesus? Do you think of a church service? Christian music maybe?
Have you ever stopped and thought about what worship really is?
Think about that for a second. Everyone worships something.
You don’t have to be religious or spiritual to worship.
Everyone worships.
The question isn’t whether or not you worship. The real question is WHAT do you worship?
Worship is simply about value. I love the way Louie Giglio defines worship. He says worship is, “our response to whatever we value most in our lives.” This is why we all worship. We all place value on something. The most important decision of your life is the decision of what you will ultimately value most.
Worship isn’t about how well you can sing or whether you can play a guitar or any other instrument. Singing and praising God is just one of many ways we worship God. It is definitely an important expression of worship, but worship isn’t limited to the songs we sing. Instead, your worship is reserved for the object(s) that hold the most value in your life. It’s the things that occupy your thoughts and receive your most time and attention. Hopefully this spot is reserved for Jesus, but maybe instead it’s a relationship, a life-long dream, a career, a certain social status, or even wealth and success. There is a long list of potential candidates for our worship. But, here is the reality:
What you value most will reveal what you worship.
But how do you know what you worship? If your life was turned into a reality show and the cameras followed your every move, what would the world discover about you? What would we learn about how you spent your time and money, and what kind of values you live by? It wouldn’t really matter how often you went to church, how many songs you sang, but rather what you did with your time would reveal to the world what you value most.
What if our time and attention revealed that the true object of our worship was none other than “me?”
Yet, don’t so many of us struggle with placing value on ourselves (our own wants and desires) above anything else?
This was the very first issue in human history. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were created in God’s own image to be a reflection of His glory.
Then the serpent came along and convinced them that life was not about being an image-bearer of God, but instead that they could become just like God. So they ate the fruit in order to elevate themselves to God’s status of “knowing good and evil.”
But it didn’t work, because that’s not what they were created for.
We weren’t created to be the God of our own little world.
We weren’t created to worship anything other than the God who created us.
What you value most will reveal what you worship.
So what do you value most? What do you hunger and thirst for?
I love the Psalmist’s prayer in Psalm 63:1:
“O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.”
When God is placed as the No. 1 object of our worship, when he is the thing that we value most in our lives, then our response will always be praise. Our worship will be directed toward Him because He is what we will value most. Our response to an amazing God who loves us with an unfailing love, will forever be a heart of celebration and rejoicing.
That is why the Psalmist continues in verses 3-5 saying,
“Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”
If we truly value God over everything else, our lives will begin to reflect His glory and thereby fulfilling our God-given, created purpose – to be an image-bearer of our Creator.
What we value most will reveal what we worship.
So you, my friend, are a worshiper. You’ve been created in the image of God to bear His image and reflect His glory. I pray that you may be found in a relentless pursuit of worshiping the God who created you; that you would reflect his glory to a hurting and broken world that God so loves.
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