July 10 // Who do you worship?

Greater Than (>)

Why does God command us to worship Him?

“Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before Him, singing with joy.”      Psalm 100:2

“The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, the giving of honor. 

I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.

The world rings with praise.

Lovers praising their partners, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game, praise of weather, wine, actors, motors, colleges, countries, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. 

I had never noticed how the humblest and at the same time the most balanced and brilliant minds praised most, while the cranks and the misfits and the malcontents praised least.

I had not noticed either, that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join in praising it: ‘Isn’t she lovely?’  ‘Wasn’t it glorious?’

‘Don’t you think that’s magnificent?’”      - C. S. Lewis 

We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.

EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMEONE OR SOMETHING   

HE IS GREATER THAN ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE

An idol is when something or someone becomes more important to us than God.

“Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”     

Romans 1:22 - 23

A FEW MODERN-DAY IDOLS

Money / Material Things

Jobs / Status

Physical Appearance

Entertainment 

WHO OR WHAT ARE YOU WORSHIPING TODAY? 

Worship God who is GREATER THAN anything else we could worship.

“No one can serve two masters.”     Matthew 6:24a

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross!      Philippians 2:6 - 8

Worship is an opportunity to shift the focus from our current situation to a greater reality – That I am not God, but He is and He is GREATER THAN whatever I’m currently going through.

WHO DO YOU WORSHIP?

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”                        Joshua 24:15b

Jesus is greater than my ______________.

All idols crumble under the weight of worship.

I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?

Psalm 121:1