Worship is not an option. We were created to worship and we will worship. The only question is who or what will we worship.
God is clear we are to have no other god but him – worshiping him and him alone. And anything else becomes an idol.
While we tend to think of idol worship as literally bowing in front of a statue or image, we worship anytime we look to something as the ultimate source of our being and dedicate our very lives to it.
For instance, this might be our work, our marriage, or even our political and social affiliations.
We’re worshiping when we cannot stop working, when our marriage leads us to neglect other responsibilities, and when social positions become our most important characteristic.
It’s not that these things are inherently bad. In fact, they often serve much good.
But they become a problem when they are the most important things in our life. They’ve become idols when we’ve dedicated our life to their fulfillment more so than God himself.
And often this is so subtle we’re not aware of what we’ve actually given our hearts over to.
For example, we’re encouraged to work hard and it’s difficult to know when we’ve gone too far and made work our god.
To be sure, marriage is honorable and all too many are too casual in living out their vows. But honoring the sanctity of marriage is not expecting it to fill us up as only God can.
And naturally we form many opinions about various social issues. And this might be part of how we bring more life and goodness into the world. But social causes are never more important than the work of Christ in our lives.
In the end, check your heart and consider carefully what you’re worshiping – removing anything that has taken God’s rightful place in your life.
Photo by Brian Lundquist on Unsplash
