Gaze into His Glory

 

 

Author and pastor John Piper says that God delights in Himself — there is no other greater or more wonderful person to WORSHIP. While the Bible does not say anything about His worship, a few hundred verses use words describing our worship or lack of it. It is about bowing down, acknowledging authority, paying homage or honor, giving glory to where glory is due.

Of course, God forbids the worship of anything that is not Him. Instead, we are to “worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness” and bow down before Him, exalting Him in wholehearted love and service with our adoration and praise. The focus is on Him, never on those who lead us in worship or on any other person or thing, for He alone is worthy of true worship.

The OT verbs translated worship can refer to both terror and awe, or even to serve. The terror part is noteworthy as some people teach that God is like a best friend or buddy, yet He is far more. His attitude toward sin ought to put some fear in us, a fear that respects Him deeply and negates our desire to do our own thing. When this fear is coupled with a loving response to His love for us, worship is filled with awe, an emotion that can be compared to other events and things, but never adequately. Worship is also sacrificial service and God’s people are commanded to serve no other gods.

The NT words for worship are religious in nature and do not always refer to God. Idolatry is forbidden as is the worship of other people. Jesus replied to Satan’s temptation to fall before him in Matthew 4:10, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

He also told a Samaritan woman that there is a correct way to worship God:

John 4:21–24. Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

This means worship is an inner response to truth about God that shows up in outward action. If I understand it correctly, it means there is a place for worship (not merely avoiding assembly with God’s people and going out in the bush to do it) but more importantly, an attitude of worship. The basis for it is truth about God.

In a discussion with another person about God hating sin, she said, “Oh, my God is not like that” and I’ve wondered ever since about that reasoning. How can we make up what we think God should be like and then worship that imagined God? False teachers and cults do this, a trap that Christians must be careful to avoid.

This reminds me of an incident in our daughter’s life. She got a new job and for the first month her coworkers had an odd attitude toward her. She finally discovered that because of the car she drove, they thought she was an ‘undercover boss’ and reacted accordingly. It was amusing for us but not funny when I try to imagine how God thinks when people assume He is something He is not and then worship that made-up God.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. God asks me to worship and serve only Him. To do that in spirit and in truth, my spirit needs to be in right relationship with His Spirit, humbly submitted to His will. And my understanding of Him must be according to the truth He has revealed about Himself, not twisted to suit my desires, but willing to see Him as He is, as my Creator, Savior, and Friend, but also as the God whose ways are higher than my ways and no matter how close to Him I bow, there is a mystery — I cannot fully grasp the wonder of who He is.

 

Worship and Fire

A sudden move to the mid-west had us searching for a new place of worship. The area had many churches, but it took several months before we could find one that was ‘alive’ in the sense that the Holy Spirit was evidently working in the lives of the people.

One church stood out, but before we found it, we attended several that disappointed us. One was so ‘dead’ that even though the doctrine was solid, the messages were wooden, the people were cold, and the singing was off-key. I recalled this church with sadness this morning when reading Tozer’s statement: “Our only real danger is that we may grieve the blessed Spirit into silence and so be left to the mercy of our intellects.… We’ll have the bush, pruned and trimmed and properly cultivated, but in the bush there will be no fire.”

(This refers to Moses meeting God at a bush that burned — but was not consumed.)

While worship is defined many ways, and often associated with the music in a service, this is a far broader activity than the music chosen for Sunday morning. The New Testament word can mean to reverence or fear, but also to prostrate oneself in the presence of the divine or supernatural as a sign of deference and worship. It is about the attitude of the heart based on knowing the truth about the One being worshiped.

Jesus talked with a woman at a well. She brought up the subject and made a distinction between the way her people worshiped and the way the Jews worshiped.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21–24)

God is not a wooden idol, an old man on a throne, or any other image people might come up with or imagine. He is spirit, meaning “the transcendental, immaterial, rational existence that constitutes the essence of supernatural entities such as God, angels, and human souls.” In simpler terms, God is a supernatural, non-material being. We cannot see Him, and He is beyond our ability to comprehend. Unless He reveals Himself in some way, worship is almost impossible.

Not only must our worship be directed toward Him, it is also ‘in spirit’ meaning we worship from the non-material part of ourselves. It may come out our mouth in words or songs, and show up in the movement of our bodies and the way we live, but it cannot be merely that. It is an issue and activity of the heart.

Furthermore, worship is about truth, about reality. God says He is Almighty, Creator, Holy, and a myriad of other things, and our worship is about all of what He is. I cannot worship a god of my own making, or a god of the aspects of God that appeal to me. My God is loving, but He must also hate sin. My God is powerful, but He must also humble Himself and die on a cross.

This is the God of the burning bush that Tozer alludes to, the God who is all that He says, revealed in Christ, described in His Word. He is far greater than my puny mind can fathom, yet even in that limitation, I cannot bring Him to my level nor can I remove anything that would make Him less than God. To do so would grieve the Holy Spirit and as Tozer says, leave me to the mercy of my own puny mind — and without the fire of the Holy Spirit.

^^^^^^^

Jesus, the very thought of this makes me shudder. I know that I’ve sometimes put You in a box, or limited You to what I want You to be. Forgive my sin of failing to worship You in spirit and in truth. May today be different, rich and full of fire as my heart gazes at the wonder of You.