Worship

Worship ... what is it? The dictionary is helpful: "The activity of worshipping." Thanks. That clears things up. But, seriously, what is it? Generally, worship is reverence, love, and honor. Technically it can be offered to anyone we care to reverence, love, and honor. A sappy guy may worship at the feet of his beloved girl. An idolater may worship anything at all. But biblical, Christian worship is focused solely on God. God alone is authorized in Scripture to receive that reverence, love, and honor that we refer to as "worship."

The word originally comes from the Old English term, "weorthscipe". Maybe, if you pronounce that, you can see its intended thought: "worth-ship." That's right, worship is intended to apply worth to the recipient. And for Christians, that "worth-ship" is supposed to be applied to God alone. The term for this is "latria," defined as "that worship which is given to God alone." Now, take that term, "latria," and stick it at the end of other terms and you'll find something interesting. "Idol"+"latria" gives us "idolatry" -- worship that is intended for God alone, but given to idols instead. Interestingly, the term has lots of English offsprings. "Autolatry" is the worship of self. "Astrolatry" is the worship of stars. "Demonolatry" is the worship of demons. "Arborolatry" is the worship of trees. "Hagiolatry" is the worship of saints and "heliolatry" is the worship of the Sun. What's my point? My point is that it is so incredibly easy for us to shift away from "latria" -- worship fo God alone -- to just about any other thing.

We are pitiful worshipers, actually. We can worship God, which is great, but we can also worship idols of all sorts. We can worship cars or women or money or sex or power or ... the list is endless, it seems. We all have our varieties of idols that we worship. The top of every list, however, is "self." We are, by nature, worshipers of our own desires, our own selves. The problem, unfortunately, is that we tend to inject just about anything at all in that space we refer to as "worship", even when we're trying to worship God. Instead of a sole focus on the Creator of the Universe, the Lord of lords, the God of gods, the Alpha and Omega ... we're paying attention to the praise band or the fine-sounding choir. With one eye on God, we have the other on the trappings, the sound, the feel. We forget that worship is assigning worth to God and begin to think that it's "feeling good" toward God ... which is simply self-worship -- How do I feel?

It is a confusing thing for us. I understand that. You see, when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. When we turn our eyes upon Jesus, it definitely affects our perceptions and feelings. When we turn our focus on the magnificence and glory of the Almighty, it cannot but change our emotions. But before long we seek that change in emotions rather than the glory of God itself and substitute the creature for the Creator.

When you worship today, keep that in mind. It's not about you. It's about Him. It's not about the music or the trappings. It's about Him. It's not about how you feel toward God. It's about God. Don't substitute idolatry for worship. Truly worship. He has sufficient glory and worth to demand it. To God be the glory!