What do you worship?
This people have I formed for myself; they will show forth my praise. Isaiah 43:21.
Therefore, I urge you, brethren, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1.
What do you worship?
As you read, I’d love if you’d ruminate on the question: what do I worship?
Recently, our church has been ministering on the word ‘worship’. What does it mean? How does it apply to our lives?
For so many of us, our understanding of worship begins and ends with lifting praises to God through singing on Sunday morning. Perhaps, while we are singing, if we are feeling extra brave and spiritual that morning, we raise our arms and sway, too.
Mostly, we think of worship as a form of celebrating God with song, prayer, church and reading the Bible. Not bad thoughts.
Our ideas about worship, if a lot of us are honest, have to do with external acts of validating God. While those notions aren’t wrong, I think we miss a bigger picture.
I would like us to consider that worship occurs when turn aside from the ordinary tasks of life to give time, attention and honor to something or someone.
In that light – how many of us worship our smart phones? Get a break in the day and the first thing we pick up and do is check our phones to see who is trying to communicate with us or maybe who has validated our recent post on social media. Or maybe we tell ourselves that we are “researching” this or that.
How many of us pattern our lives by turning aside and giving regular time, attention and honor to: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Hulu, gaming apps and consoles, an important relationship, our hobbies, our Spotify list, the latest bestseller. Raising my hand here too! You’re not alone.
We worship a lot of things that aren’t God. So, in that light, let’s consider a few important things about worship as the pattern of our life.
Above, the scripture in Isaiah shows us that God has created us to be His representation of praise. It means that we live our lives in such a way that onlookers will see the goodness of God reflected in the testimony of our lives and that is a praise to Him.
How do we get there? Well, it’s accomplished through what Romans 12:1 says. “Therefore, I urge you, brethren, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.”
What does it mean to present or offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? First, we need to understand why presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice is pivotal.
I think we can all agree, there isn’t much (externally speaking) we have control over in life, right? I mean, not really. That’s why we often say things like, “let go, and let God” as the answer to the fact that our daily lives take shape around us in ways outside of our authority.
There is, however, one thing in this life that in most situations, we have total authority over, and that is ourselves. Think about it. From a young age, we have a lot of autonomy surrounding what we think and do. Even if our physical selves are under the power of another, I can’t think of one real instance, an instance that exists outside of the movies, where our mind is controlled by another without our agreement. As we mature and become adults, we have total autonomy over what we think and what we do.
Consider, we don’t have to watch that movie (we can leave the room or change the channel) or listen to that song or read that book. We can control how long we spend on our various devices (phones, tablets, TVs, computers, gaming systems etc.,). We don’t have to go to the bar even if that cool band you really like is playing there. We don’t have to worship our problems or eagerly wait for the next bit of drama and gossip. We don’t have to be slaves to fear and the pattern of our thoughts don’t need to be anxious especially since the bible says “Be eager for nothing but, with all prayer and supplication, make your requests be made known to God.” We don’t have to worship our medical illnesses or our relationships.
We present ourselves as “living sacrifices” through our choices in what we allow to become important in our lives.
God says that, considering His mercy toward us, it’s reasonable for us to exercise control over the ONE thing we have ABSOLUTE authority over, and that’s how we conduct ourselves. Does it feel good to master our time or our thought life? No. That’s the sacrifice part. We are living sacrifices when we decide to die to our sin nature and live to Christ. That living to Christ part is “true and proper” worship.
More often than not, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to ourselves and we leave God the crumbs. As the great and wise (all the snark) Homer Simpson says, “DOH!”.
At the beginning, I asked a simple question: What do you worship? What do you turn aside and give your time, attention, and honor to? Kinda crazy to think that an obsession with our health could be what we worship over God… am I right? I asked you that question because it’s important for us to realize the worship of our lives so that we can exercise authority over our nature and change it.
Let me reassure you, you’re not alone. As even Paul said, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The vast majority of us need work in this area. We need to become true worshipers of God. Our lives need to become that reflection of Christ and God’s goodness through our choices to cast down our idols or the things we worship instead of God.
A peeve of mine is a writing that points out a truth, but then stops short of providing helpful answers. To not be what irritates me, take some of those extra moments today where you might normally turn aside to something else and seek God. Ask Him what you worship and how to take steps (not leaps and bounds) to take authority over that area in your life. Remember that we are constantly being transformed by the renewing of our mind. This implies an ongoing interactive relationship with God. Ask God to help you take those steps in faithfulness as a living sacrifice. Let him show you what to replace certain patterns with (i.e., christian music, books, movies. A different friend group, a prayer meeting or service instead of a concert, mastering your thoughts and changing your focus, spending time with Him, being conscious of His abiding presence wherever you are and listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings).
Final thoughts: Sometimes simple confessions of truth are powerful in changing an unwilling or unmotivated heart. I have to tell God all the time that I know certain things are right or wrong, but my heart doesn’t match my head knowledge. I have to ask God to help me change my heart because on my own; I don’t want to. I would caution you away from trying to change your behavior solely on your own and would instead encourage you to recognize what you worship and then ask God for His solutions and His help. His ways are higher than our own.
