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Thursday, June 29, 2017

Made to Worship

I would argue that one of the universal components for the human design is the drive to worship. We were made to worship.

Now, remember, "worship" is defined as basically "worth-ship", assigning great value to something. That which we worship, then, would be the things to which we assign the highest value. And since we are all about assigning value to things, we appear to be born to it. So, we worship lots of things. We worship cars and money, fame and power, "stuff", even "patriotism". We worship people, too. That might be our favorite politician, our favorite entertainment personality, our favorite sports star, or our favorite pastor. It might even be our spouse ... or our kids.

We are in the habit of putting something at the highest value, you see. Most often, of course, that would be "me". We worship self. Starting from the Garden, when Satan told Eve, "God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God." (Gen 3:5) That's it, isn't it? "I will make myself like the Most High." (Isa 14:14) I will be my very own God. Second to that, I suppose, would be the "god in my image" version of God.

We weren't made for that, however. Scripture tells us "What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." (Rom 1:19-20) We were made to worship, and we were made specifically to worship God. Not "god to me" or "whatever I deem to be god". The God revealed in nature and in Scripture; the real God.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that people worship so many strange things. Maybe it's stuff. Maybe it's sex. Maybe it's nonsense. Naturally hostile to God (Rom 8:7), worshiping God goes against the natural Man. So we fill that void with anything else we can. Or, we can fill it with God. He is so much more satisfying than the lies we replace Him with.

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