Meant For Worship - Part 2

The Bible declares without contradiction that God and God alone is to be the One whom we worship. We were indeed meant for worship like we saw the woman in the first post of this series worships Elvis. But it's the God who created heaven and earth (and human beings, too) that's to be the focus of our worship, not a person! In Psalm 2:11 the Scriptures say, "Worship the Lord with reverence." In Psalm 29:2 we read, "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; worship the Lord in holy array." And in Matthew 4:10 Jesus Himself confirms that God is to be our worship focus. In response to the devil's demand for worship Christ declares, "'Begone, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only"'" (Mt. 4:10). And the fact that the God we are to worship is Jesus Himself is also made evident through the Scriptures. Our Savior is to be worshiped because He is God. This is important to realize because other religions direct their followers to worship their so-called "gods" which are not really gods at all. Jesus Christ is the one and only true God (Titus 2:13). Speaking of Him Hebrews 1:6 states, "And let all the angels of God worship Him (Christ)" (Heb. 1:6; Ps. 97:7). And in Matthew 2:11 it says, "...[The Magi (wisemen)] came into the house and saw the Child [Jesus] with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him (Christ)..." (Mt. 2:11). While on earth Jesus actually received worship without remark and didn't deny His Godhood. He did so because He is God and God alone is to be the focus of our worship. In John 10:38 the man born blind and healed by Jesus says to Him, "..."Lord, I believe [in You]." And [the formerly blind man] worshiped Him (Christ) (the verse closes)" (Jn. 10:38). And in Matthew 28:17 we read of the disciples' reaction to our Savior's appearance after the resurrection. There it says that, "...[When] they saw [Jesus], they worshiped Him (Christ); but some were doubtful" (Mt. 28:17). Again, my friends, we were meant for worship. Our worship focus is to be God and God alone. And because Jesus is God, when we worship Him, we are fulfilling our privilege.

Meant For Worship - Part 1

Worship. We hear the term used often. Sometimes the church building is called a house of worship. Sometimes the Sunday morning church gathering is called a worship service. But I don't want to talk so much about buildings and/or services. What I want to talk about instead is personal worship. A good way of determining who or what a person worships would be by asking the following questions: "How much time is he or she devoting to it?," "Does his or her lifestyle revolve around it?," "Is it central to him or her?," and, "Could he or she live without it?" A street was named "Elvis Place" (after Elvis Presley) being the ultimate victory of one woman's tireless efforts to bring it to pass. The young (at the time) and excited Miss Frazer's response would be to go and see, of all things, an Elvis movie. The question was, "Which one?" You see, she'd seen them all. And some more than once. For example, Miss Frazer had seen the movies, Love Me Tender, 107 times, Loving You, 110 times, King Creole, 91 times, and Jailhouse Rock, 91 times. When you add to this that Miss Frazer moved from New Orleans to Memphis to be near Elvis (his mansion is at Graceland), has twelve scrapbooks full of Elvis memorabilia - along with 40,000 pictures of him and a life-size cardboard replica of Elvis propped up overlooking her bed! - I guess you might have just a slight inkling as regards who this young lady has as a focus? You and I were meant for worship. But the worship we were meant for wasn't the worship of Elvis or any other person (or anything else). I'll talk more about who we were meant to worship in Part 2 of this blog post series. To come soon.