"Worshippers"
I recently heard an exercise physiologist express gratitude to "Science" for newly discovered information regarding health and fitness.
Naturalists (those who believe the universe exists as the product of natural process rather than Divine, supernatural origination) frequently refer to science in personal terms of acknowledgment, gratitude, and even adoration. Many of these same devotees, however, recoil at the notion of the personal God to whom born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ express praise and thanksgiving. In reality, of course, naturalists do not believe that "Science" actually possesses any form of consciousness that could hear or receive acclamation. Naturalists are thus thinking, self aware beings who give thanks to a cold, mindless, and heartless non-entity.
Allow the absurdity of this to settle into your thoughts for a moment. In the minds of some, the universe and our knowledge if it possess no personal reality. Naturalists nevertheless often act as if it does. At the very least, they often employ the rhetoric and terminology of spiritual devotion when speaking of physical reality. Why do they so strangely behave in what can only be considered religious terms?
The Bible provides the answer. "They worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever" (Romans 1:21; 25). Naturalists are worshippers, no less than believers who bestow faith, devotion, and submission unto Someone other than ourselves. God built such a capacity into human beings, and we all exercise the ingrained disposition to worship. The issue involves the object of our devotion. Do we worship the living and true God, as revealed in the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the written Word, the Bible? Or do we worship anyone or anything else? As in the case of the naturalist, we will worship someone, even if we do not really believe in the god of our own making.
"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat" (Psalm 115:4-7).
This raises the question for ourselves. Do we worship God as He is? Even born again believers can relate to our Lord in a manner that does not coincide with His truth and reality. Thus, we seek to know and understand Him according to the parameters of His Word. And thus we consistently ask for the searching of our hearts and minds in order to be confirmed or corrected in our worship of God through the Lord Jesus. Again, every human being exercises the innate capacity for devotion to someone or something greater than ourselves. Everybody worships. The question always involves who, or what?
"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
(John 4:23-24)
Weekly Memory Verse
The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.
(Proverbs 11:17)
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