“Made To Worship, Enabled To Worship"

"Made To Worship, Enabled To Worship"  

      We either worship the living and true God of Scripture.  Or we invent a god of our own devising (even if we don't refer to the object of our devotion in spiritual or religious terms).

     "Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (I Thessalonians 1:9).

     By definition, human hearts always worship something greater than ourselves.  We may or may not be conscious of such consecration, and many people seem devoted to themselves rather than the master who governs their existence (one of the deadliest aspects of spiritual deception).  We nevertheless worship by nature, the nature woven into our being by the God who actually exists.  He made us as dependent creatures with the freedom to determine the object of our devotion.  "Choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15).  Thereby genuine relationship and fellowship become possible and actual in those who respond to the overtures of "the living and true God"' who beckons us to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ.  "He is thy Lord.  Worship thou Him" (Psalm 45:11).

    Our capacity for worship requires the presence of the Holy Spirit to empower devotion to our Lord.  "I will love Thee, o Lord my strength" proclaimed the Psalmist, beautifully expressing both the determination and dependence that characterizes true consecration to God (Psalm 18:1).  David longed to genuinely walk with his Lord in committed and affectionate fellowship - "I will love Thee."  He knew, however, that true worship required  the Lord's working in his heart - "O Lord my strength."  By definition, coerced devotion would be oxymoronic.  However, the quest to empower our own walk with the Lord is just as contradictory.  Thus, we will to worship in response to God's overtures as the Holy Spirit moves upon the waters of our hearts.  And we look to the same active Presence in those waters to direct the current of our love toward the throne of grace and its worthy King.  "I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy" (Psalm 5:7).

    Everybody worships.  All will to follow something or someone outside of themselves as the object and power of devotion.  The God of the Bible alone serves as the deity who leads us to life both now and forevermore.  We do well to continually remind ourselves and others that He made us to worship, and to worship "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).  The course of this day and of eternity depends on our response to the calling, and confidence that the living and true God will lead and enable us in our devotion to Him.

"We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

(Philippians 3:3)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."

(Jeremiah 33:3)