Last week we talked about being objects of God love, being created to be loved by God. Now we’ll look the other side of the coin, God wants you to love Him back. In the New Testament Jesus was asked: “Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Bible?” In Matthew 22. He said, “Love the Lord your God. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
Worship is knowing and loving God back. Today, worship is often misunderstood. What do you think of when I say Worship? Prayer, singing, ritual or communion or something you do in church? Worship is much more. Our first PURPOSE in life is to worship God. It’s our highest priority.
First, worship is my response to God’s love.
Worship is just the way I react, I respond, to God when He loves me. Notice it says “ because of God’s great mercy,” God takes the initiative, always makes the first move. God doesn’t ever ask you to make the first move.
Second, worship is giving back to God.
He gives to us, and we give back to Him. When your kids are grateful to you, as a parent, that brings pleasure to you. When we’re grateful to our Heavenly Father, that brings pleasure to Him. In Mark chapter 12, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”
God wants me to love Him three ways: Matt. 22:37-38
• Thoughtfully
• Passionately
• Practically
NOW LET’S LOOK AT WHAT WORSHIP IS…1. Worship is focusing my attention on God. It is focusing my mind, my thoughts, my attention on God. In some religions, the idea of worship is loosing your mind to the universe. The truth is, God wants us to worship Him with our mind and thoughtfully. The reason is God made you is to love you. The greatest expression of love is often attention.
How do I focus my attention on God?
FIRST, establishing a daily time with God. Talk to Him, read His Word.Focusing on God has incredible benefits in our lives. In Isaiah 26, verse 3, “you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on You!” Focusing on yourself, result are thoughts of worry, insecurity, anxiety, guilt, fear, discouragement. Focusing to God, you begin to sense gratitude and hope and confidence and love. Let’s focus on God right now. Count your blessings, think about God’s help, intervention, faithfulness this last week. 30”
SECOND,developing a constant conversation with God.
2. Worship is expressing my affection to God. This is loving God with your heart and soul, with your feelings. For some this could be difficult because you might have grown up in families that did not show affections.
1 John 4:17 the Bible says, “We love Him, because He first loved us.” In many religions, God is this angry tyrant, and you have to be afraid of Him, and have you to avoid Him. But that’s not the real God. The Bible says God wants to be loved.
The most important thing you can know in life is that God loves you. And the most important thing you can do in life is to love Him back. The greatest way to express affection to God is by giving your life to Him, by yielding yourself to Him.
Romans 6 says, “Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life.” It’s always a response. God gave us life, then He gives new life in Jesus. He says I want you to give yourself completely back to Me. One obstacle to giving yourself to God may be fear. Fear of perhaps becoming a some strange person. But God made you to be you, with that personality -- whether you’re an introvert, extrovert, like routine, like variety. God doesn’t want to you turn into a strange or fanatic or some religious zealot. He wants you to be you. And the more you know God and the more you love God, the more normal and the more you become what God meant for you to be in the first place.
3. Worship is using my abilities for God. This is loving God with all your strength.
God wants us to love Him THOUGHTFULLY, that we see Him with our minds.
God wants us to love Him PASSIONATELY, that we sense Him with our heart and soul.
And God wants us to love Him PRACTICALLY, that we serve Him with our strength. More than words are needed to show affections, actions. And that’s part of worship!
Colossians 3:23. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.” Now, this verse can revolutionize your life. It’s not what you do that matters; it’s Who you do it for. The next verse, paraphrased in the Message, it says in Romans 12, “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, your eating, your going to work, your walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.”
Real purpose-driven living doesn’t happen in a church, in a small group, in your personal time of quiet time with God every day, of prayer and reading the Bible. It happens in the ordinary, routine, things of real life where you go. Everything can be turned into an act of worship. Real worship is a lifestyle.
Everybody worships something. It is in our DNA. You can go to any culture in the world and find people worshipping.
If you don’t worship God, you’re going to find a substitute real quick, even if it is just yourself.
My question is this: “what are you worshipping?”
• To where you’re giving your primary attention to,
• To where you’re giving your primary affection to
• To where you’re giving your primary abilities to.
If we focus our attention and we express our affection and we use our abilities for the one who made us, God says, “I’ll take care of everything else. When you understand how passionate He is about you, how much He loves you, how much He cares about every detail, you can’t help but love God.
The greatest mistake in life is to miss your primary purpose.
The Bible says you were planned for God’s pleasure. You were made to know and love God.
I challenge you to make this the No 1 goal of your life before everything else, getting to know and love God, because that brings Him pleasure. There’s not a better goal in life than this one!