Worship
Last night at the Crossroads worship team meeting, John Dingle read some verses from Dueteronomy 12 and facilitated a discussion with the team members on the topic of worship and the contemporary application of God’s exhortations to the people of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament. Here are the verses the team meditated upon:
These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess–as long as you live in the land. Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the Lord your God in their way… (Deut. 12:1-4)
The focus of the discussion last night centered in on the final verse: You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. Since the discussion last evening was quite thought-provoking, I thought I would continue the theme in this email and formulate a few thoughts on the important topic of worship.
*Christians profess to be monotheists (worshipers of one God), yet there is a constant threat that our worship will be hindered by contemporary idols. To worship means to offer an active, obedient response to God, thus declaring His supremacy over all aspects of life. Examples of cultural idols that can divide our allegiance to God and cheapen our worship are: placing supreme worth on a secure career and becoming consumed with amassing financial resources–the god of self-preservation; developing a fixation on one’s personal physical appearance–the god of vanity; living from one adrenaline rush to another in an attempt to top a previous thrill–the god of excessive entertainment. God does not allow for a co-mingling of true worship of the living God and worship of idols; the idols must be destroyed. What idols are most tempting to you? How are they hindering you from worshiping in spirit and in truth?
*The verses from Deuteronomy address the children of Israel who were living among the Canaanites, a population that practiced polytheism (the worship of multiple gods). When cultures worship many gods, there are often designated gods for the various aspects of life, such as work, weather, agriculture, war, fertility, and family. In other words, if a soldier seeks a favorable outcome in a battle situation, he might consult Anat, the goddess of war and strife. In this worship situation, speaking to a god becomes primarily an issue of getting what one desires for a particular outcome. The god serves as a type of heavenly vending machine.
Theologian Miroslav Volf, in his book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, writes about how we often recreate God in our own image. Volf likens the vending machine God to our notion of Santa:
Santa gives. He doesn’t lay down any conditions prior to giving the gifts, even if parents lamely try to warn little imps that Santa gives only to good boys and girls. After dispensing his gifts, Santa makes no demands. With a bottomless bag of goodies, he comes out of nowhere–well, almost nowhere. And after granting everybody’s wishes, he returns to nowhere.
Some scholars of popular religion describe Santa as a god of consumerist materialism whose sole purpose is to give. And indeed, many people think of God in this way, as a Santa Claus conveniently enlarged to divine proportions. God is an infinitely rich, always available, and unfailingly generous giver–or at least, that’s what we feel a god worthy of divinity ought to be. God gives without conditions and without demands. As the sun shines and a spring flows, so God gives–solves our problems, fulfills our desires, and makes us feel good. A Santa Claus God demands nothing from us.
Undoubtedly, all Christians struggle from time to time to resist turning God into a divine Santa. We are so used to getting what we want–when we want it. Yet the essence of true worship is not to have God affirm our own self-promoting desires; rather, the crux of the matter is to give Him praise and honor for His utter worthiness and, in the process of sincere worship, our desires will melt and defer to His sovereign plan.
As you prepare your heart for worship each day, ask these basic questions:
1) What are the idols in my heart that need to be destroyed?
2) What is my view of God? Do I love and worship God simply because He is worthy? Or, am I approaching Him only to further my agenda and to give me what I want?