I’ve been meditating recently on what it means to worship God. It’s always been a hot topic in evangelical circles, and the “party line” way of describing worship nowadays is, “worship is a lifestyle.” And it is. Of course it is. God only deserves worship in a church service?
If worship is feasting on all that God is for us in Jesus, then those who come hungry and thirsty are the ones in whom God delights, for God is their delight. If we come to give God glory and not receive, we are blaspheming God, because we reduce him to a needy god-figure desperate for praise.
How do we come to feast upon God himself and not be selfish? Why are there those who say, “Don’t come to church to receive, come to church to give”? Am I not to be concerned with my own well-being? Of course I am! No person does not love his body. It is impossible to not seek our own pleasure. If I say, “I want to be unhappy,” I am already becoming pleased in unhappiness, however twisted and perverted that may be.
We were created to be pleasure-seeking creatures, which leads me to believe that God wants us to be happy. And it isn’t selfish for God to say, “In me you will find ultimate happiness,” because if he did not say so, he would be placing higher value on someone other than himself, and thus cease to truly be God. So then we should not worship him, because he himself does not value himself enough to be worshiped.
So it makes sense that if God is for us, for our pleasure. Because to those who come to him, he says, “Come, sinner! Feast upon me!”
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.
Sam Storm writes, in Pleasures Evermore, that “worship is a feast in which God is the host, the cook, the waiter, and the meal itself.”
Paul spoke of the incredible worth and glory of God in Mars Hill:
The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! (The Message)
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