Download gdc19005_wisdominworship.pdf
Download gdc19005_wisdominworship.epub

GOD'S CALL

Major themes in the Scriptures

The wisdom of God (5)

Wisdom in worship

Reference: GDC-S19-005-Mw-R00-P2

(Originally spoken on 8 March 2015, edited on 11 March 2015)

Web site: http://www.ajourneyinlife.org and http://www.ajourneyinlife.com

This message is protected by copyright © 2015 Lim Liong. Permission is given to reproduce part (where the meaning is retained and the part is not quoted out of context) or all, of it, for personal use or for distribution, on condition that no changes are made and the message is distributed free of charge. Please do so prayerfully and discreetly.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

The paragraphs above as well as this paragraph must be included when the message is reproduced so that others who reproduce it will be conscious of the conditions stated above.

The Lord willing, today we will consider the subject, "The wisdom of God" the fifth message, in seeking to appreciate major themes in the Scriptures.

A short summary of today's message:

God is perfectly good and infinitely wise, yet we often do not appreciate His wisdom because we have our own ideas and ways that we prefer that are not based on good moral meaning. This is seen in His wisdom expressed in the area of worship.

We will seek the Lord to appreciate more of what this means.

All of us know that God requires of us to worship Him. He expects us to do so and He commands us to do so. We may wonder why. Why is it so important to Him that we should worship Him?

What is the meaning of worship? What are the implications? When we think of worship, often we may associate that with some sort of sacrifice, an attitude of recognition that He is great, He is the Creator and we submit to Him; and we may do various things that we think He wants us to do.

God is not the only one who wants us to worship Him.

Many people also would like that kind of status and position. At a lesser level, there are people who like others to hero-worship them. Hero worship in meaning is different from worship of God, but there are similarities in some ways. Hero worship basically refers to an excessive admiration for somebody and this can often lead to very unwise courses of action. At a higher level, we know that Satan also wants to be worshiped.

So what do we think of what worship means?

We may at times think that God wants us to worship Him because He enjoys that kind of respect, obedience, submission to His will; He wants us to experience His power so that He can display His glory. God wants to enjoy what He can out of the creation that He has made.

Why does God demand of us to worship Him?

It is important for us to come to recognize that worship of God is an expression of the perfect wisdom of God. We may not realize it but it is in the context of worship of God that God can properly impart to us the very, very best for our well-being, and true meaning in life.

Without true worship of God, we cannot properly receive what God would want to give to us. The higher the quality of our worship of God, the more we will be able to benefit from the goodness of God and what He wants to give to us. Why is this the case?

Underlying it we need to understand the motive involved when God wants us to worship Him and later we can consider the contrast with the motive of Satan when he wants us to worship him - what is the difference.

Let us turn to Exodus 20: 1-6.

Exodus 20: 1-6

1. Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3. "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5. "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6. but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

As we read this passage, it may possibly come through to us that God likes us to worship Him. He is a jealous God; He cannot stand it if we worship any other god, and it may seem to us that He shows favouritism to those who worship Him and He is angry with those who do not. So it seems to be rather self-centred, but when we look at the totality of the Scriptures and we see how God deals with us, what He requires of us, what He wants from us, we realize that the opposite is true.

Before we go on to that, we look at the contrast. Satan also wants to be worshiped and his attitude could be expressed by these words: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the most High" (that is in Isaiah 14: 14). Satan wants to be like God ("I will make myself like the most High.") and this we can see is expressed in the way he conducts himself in this world.

How does Satan seek to be worshiped?

He has great power; he is very intelligent; he is very cunning, and his primary weapon is deception and threats. By deception, he may draw us into thinking that he is good when he is not. By threats, he may warn us that if we do not follow him, we will suffer, he will attack us, he will make life difficult for us and we cannot bear it.

So what is his motive? We can say his motive basically is selfishness, self- centredness, pride. He wants glory for himself; he wants power over other people; he wants other moral beings to be subject to him; he wants to be able to command and others obey, do his bidding.

What does this basically mean? It basically means that Satan wants to extract everything he can out of us for himself by whatever means - as some people say, by hook or by crook - he does not care. What he wants is for his own enjoyment, power and glory and he will do it by whatever means he can. So it is basically to extract what he can out of us who may be prepared to worship him, and in the process, he will destroy us.

So this is the motive in his wanting to be worshiped and this area of pride is a very central aspect within the heart of Satan and it motivates him in the things that he does. He wants to be like God. He is a created being but he wants to be like God; he wants to have that kind of position, authority and respect, which does not belong to him.

The apostle Paul knew that this area of pride is a very serious problem and in advising Timothy how he should look for leaders in the church, overseers, he said, "...and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil" (1 Timothy 3: 6). "...not a new convert" - a new convert who is soon after made a leader can very readily become conceited, become proud, and when he does that, he falls into the condemnation incurred by the devil.

The devil has been condemned by God because of this problem of pride: he wanted to exalt himself and he took steps in that direction and so God passed sentence on him, condemned him to eternal judgment.

The problem of pride is not only restricted to new converts. Even when we become mature Christians, this will still be an issue that we need to be very alert towards. Whenever we are self-centred in one form or another, pride readily will become important to us. When we are preoccupied with ourselves, we want others to think well of us, we may then take steps in order to gain that kind of recognition, and so we may not properly live our lives for the true well-being of others.

Now let us consider God. What motivates God in calling upon us to worship Him? What does He want to accomplish out of it?

Deuteronomy 10: 17-18

17. "For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.
18. "He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.

This is just a small description of who God is but it gives us an understanding of the direction, the attitude, within Him. He is the great, the almighty God and He shows no partiality, He does not take a bribe. That is to say God is not influenced by what we try to do to please Him unless it is pure and it is good. He does not show partiality because He is morally perfect. He does not take a bribe because what He wants to do is that which is morally good. And so He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.

God is perfectly just and He does not call us to worship Him for His own enjoyment but instead He calls us to worship Him so that we can benefit from His justice and His love. As we draw near to God with the right spirit, God will bless us and grant to us that which is the very best.

When we understand the true meaning of worship of God and its implications, we will come to realize that the most important, the greatest, choice and commitment that we can ever make is to choose to worship God with the totality of our being.

If we ponder over the many areas of Christian life that we have come to know over all the years, we will understand that every aspect of life that is meaningful, that is important, that is good, must arise from a true worship of God.

It is only when we truly worship God that we will understand in a deeper way what moral perfection is, not just as an idea and principle but also practical reality of being. It is as we draw near to God that we will behold His glory and as we learn to worship Him, it will mean an appreciation of these values and how we can develop them.

At the heart of worship of God is the giving of ourselves totally to Him because we recognize that He is morally perfect, He is worthy, and we are prepared to live our lives fully for Him in accordance with His instructions, His will. If we truly worship God then our lives cannot be lived just as we wish because we have given ourselves to Him to follow Him, to live for Him.

Satan understood this. He knew how important it is if we were to worship God. And this is what he seeks to destroy in terms of his activities, his intentions, and his ways of working. We see this expressed when he tempted the Lord Jesus.

Matthew 4: 8-10

8. Again, the devil *took Him to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;
9. and he said to Him, "All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me."
10. Then Jesus *said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

Satan wanted the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect Man, to worship him. If Satan succeeded in this, then the mission of the Lord Jesus would have been destroyed. He would no longer be able to serve God; He would no longer be able to fulfil the will of God; He would no longer be able to be the Saviour of the world. Worshipping Satan would mean being subject to his authority, being obedient to him in whatever he may instruct Him, showing utmost respect to him in whatever he may do.

Satan wants us to worship him and he knows if we do worship him in any degree, we will destroy the true worship of God and the worship will shift from God to Satan.

The Lord Jesus' reply: "Go, Satan! For it is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'" "it is written" - we can see that that is an expression of His worship of God. "It is written - that is enough. If God has said so, that is My authority; that is sufficient. I will not move away from that." So this is an aspect of true worship of God.

How seriously do we take what God has said? In the Garden of Eden, we know that Adam and Eve knew what God had said with regard to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but they did not take it seriously enough. Eve was prepared to talk to Satan about it and become convinced by him in his deceptive ways, as a result of which Eve took of the fruit. Adam was told by God specifically not to eat that fruit but he took from his wife and he ate it. He disregarded what God had said.

This is something that all of us need to take heed towards. When we recognize what God has said, whether in the written form or in the oral form or in whatever form, when we recognize that this is what God has said, that must be enough for us.

If that is not enough for us then there is something defective in our worship of God, and this will draw us in the direction of following the evil one. He is always waiting to draw us away from God.

The Lord Jesus said, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.' That is to say, we are to worship only God; He is the only almighty, perfect God. And unless we appreciate that and learn to worship Him as such, we can be drawn away by many other beings or things in this world that are contrary to the will of God.

The Lord Jesus said, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.' "SERVE HIM ONLY" can only arise from "WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD" only.

If we want to serve God and we do not learn to worship God, then our service cannot be of real quality because there will be many things that we may do that are not in line with what is in the heart of God.

In order to serve God as we should, we need first to learn to worship Him. Worshiping God involves our getting to know Him, understanding what is in His heart and being committed to whatever He wants to accomplish. So it must involve an absolute giving of ourselves to Him in order to fulfil His will.

We know that when Satan sought to tempt the Lord Jesus, he did it at least over a period of forty days. The Lord Jesus was in the wilderness and He was tempted by the devil during that time, but we have here recorded in Matthew 4 three specific areas that are mentioned and these are areas of great significance for our learning. The most important we have just seen is in the area of worship of God. The other two passages basically relate to the area of worship; they are expressions of worship and if you damage these two other areas, worship will be damaged.

Matthew 4: 1-4

1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.
3. And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
4. But He answered and said, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"

Here we are told the Lord Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights and He became hungry. The tempter came to Him to tempt Him to do something that was not what God wanted Him to do. He said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread so that You do not need to be hungry; You can be fed and You have the power to do it. If You are the Son of God, You can do that, You can command these stones to become bread."

So we see that if the Lord Jesus had taken that step, He would be moving in the same direction as the evil one: independence from God, seeking his own will, exercising his authority and power contrary to the will of God. The Lord Jesus answered: Again He said, "It is written... I am not interested in what you say. What is important to Me is what God says and God says, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.' So this is sufficient for Me. This is what God has said: it is written."

What is at the heart of this - 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE'? Yes, we have a body, we do need physical bread but that is not the primary issue. We are not to LIVE ON BREAD ALONE - bread is not everything; the physical realm is not everything. What is more important is the moral and spiritual realm and that depends on EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD. Are we prepared to live our lives this way, based on EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD?

This brings across the important aspect of absolute obedience to God. Many of us, we wish to understand more of what God has said and that is good; we all should want to know more of what God has said. But more important than understanding what God has said is to live by EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD. In fact, if we know and we do not do then it will bring condemnation in our lives.

What God has said, what He has taught us is meant to move us in the direction of obedience. So again, here we see an aspect of worship is obedience.

If we are not prepared to obey God, we cannot say that we are truly worshiping Him. Of course we know that Christians who are sincere, who genuinely do worship God, in reality often disobey God in many aspects of life. That does not mean that they do not worship God but it does mean that the quality of worship is defective; it is not what it ought to be.

True quality of worship requires our paying close attention to what God has said and being very diligent to live it out, to live by what God has said.

So we may wonder why God requires absolute obedience when we worship Him.

When we look at the Scriptures, we read the commandments of God, His instructions, we will begin to realize that all the commandments of God bring life and light to us. The commandments of God help us to become what we ought to be. It is when we learn to live by the commandments of God that we will receive the life of God, we will be transformed to become like Him.

So absolute obedience to God is a very important aspect of worship of God.

If Satan could move the Lord Jesus away from absolute obedience to God, he would have destroyed that perfect worship of God.

Very often in our lives, the evil one may not work immediately to tell us: "Worship me; do not worship God." He may not say that. He may just draw us a little bit into the world so that we disobey God a little bit. Yes, we still do many things pleasing to God, we still do many things that we understand are good in the eyes of God, but we just "take a holiday" here and there to do the things that we like, to enjoy the world that is not in line with what is in God's heart, but we think it is quite harmless.

Bear in mind that whenever we do that, we are moving away from a true worship of God and gradually this will eat into our hearts and more and more our lives can become corrupted by the world.

Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh at a very early stage, at a stage when he still loved God significantly. But that choice likely affected his many other choices later on to marry many other foreign women and that destroyed his life. But that was because he chose not to follow God totally.

And so this is true in all of our lives that if we do not take heed in this area of total obedience to God, if we treat that lightly then our lives would be in danger.

Let us look at the other temptation recorded in Matthew 4.

Matthew 4: 5-7

5. Then the devil *took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,
6. and *said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU'; and 'ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'"
7. Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Here we see how cunning Satan is.

Satan knew that the Lord Jesus Christ would live His life on the basis of what God had said. To the Lord Jesus, "it is written" is sufficient. If this is what God commands, that is sufficient for Him and so Satan said, "for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU'; and 'ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.' So this was written. So therefore, You can throw yourself down because God will command His angels to bear You up, so You will not be hurt."

It sounds right but it was totally wrong, and this is something that all of us must take heed: the evil one is very cunning and he knows the Scriptures well. He can quote the Scriptures in order to destroy you.

The Lord Jesus knew the Scriptures perfectly well and He said in reply, "On the other hand, it is written, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

What does that mean?

It means the Lord Jesus was telling Satan, "You are quoting the Scriptures out of context; this is not what is meant when that was written."

'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.' is what applies to this situation. 'God WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS' is only in the context when we live our lives in a context of obedience to God. When we are walking with Him, God will watch over us and where it is appropriate, He will command His angels to protect us.

But it does not mean that anyone who claims to worship God can do whatever he wishes and say, "I trust God; He will protect me." This is something that can easily happen when we misjudge, misunderstand, misinterpret the Scriptures.

If we want to go our own way, it is very easy for the evil one to give us such quotations to tell us, "God will watch over you. Go ahead and do what you would like to do. Though dangerous, it is all right. You are a child of God, He will protect you."

But the Lord Jesus said: "... it is written, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Do not be presumptuous; do not take lightly what God intends to accomplish.

It is important that we show the due reverence to God by recognizing what is in His heart, what is the meaning that He wants to communicate.

We cannot distort what God has said; we cannot just make use of what He has said to suit our own purposes.

So one aspect of true worship is reverence for God - a deep, very deep respect for God, who He is: Who He is, what He wants to accomplish, what is important to Him, what He intends to do; to identify with Him and not to test Him by going our own way and asking God to prove Himself. It is just like saying, "If You are God then protect me", challenging Him to manifest His power.

If in any way in our lives we are presumptuous and we do not carefully seek God as we live our lives, then we can place ourselves in such a position, and we may think that God will protect us when in reality He will not, because we are not walking according to His will.

If God had indeed commanded Him (the Lord Jesus) to jump down, yes that would be a different issue but in this instance, certainly God did not do so.

So if we want to learn to worship God, we must seek to know what is in the heart of God, what He wants to accomplish in His creation of Man and how we can properly submit to Him.

Let us turn to John 4: 19-24.

John 4: 19-24

19. The woman *said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
20. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."
21. Jesus *said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
22. "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
24. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

The Lord Jesus met this woman of Samaria and in the conversation, He showed that He knew what this woman was going through and she then said, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet."

And in this context she raised this issue that is important for us to appreciate: She said, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Was this statement true? Yes, it was true: Their fathers, the woman's forefathers, they worshiped in this mountain; that was what they were taught. "But you people, the Jews, say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" - it was also true. They were to worship in Jerusalem, in the temple that God had designated.

But the Lord Jesus *said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

So the Lord Jesus was communicating something very important: It is true that God commanded the Jewish people to worship in Jerusalem in the temple, offering the sacrifices in that temple that Solomon had built.

But the true worship was not in that temple; the true worship resided in the hearts of men.

People can go to that temple and worship and burn many, many burnt offerings but not truly worship God. On the other hand, people like Job may not be in that temple but truly worship God. Job offered sacrifices to God, and they were accepted by God. Job was regarded as a blameless, upright man and God regarded him highly.

God commanded the Jews to worship in Jerusalem because that was an outward context, outward expression, that was suitable for them and could help them to nurture a spirit of worship, but it was not equal to true worship.

So too, when we come together physically, it is a helpful context for us to learn to worship God, but coming together physically is not equal to worship. Our hearts can be far away from God; we can be preoccupied with the things of the world, we may not be interested in what God has to say to us. That is not worship.

True worship is in the heart. Do we really love God? Do we really want to do His will? Are we listening to what He has to say? That is what true worship is.

So the Lord Jesus said, "It is not in this mountain nor in Jerusalem where you will worship the Father." This applies in both senses.

In the physical realm, God no longer required the people just to stay in Jerusalem to worship, to express in that way. The Lord Jesus has come; He is the perfect Sacrifice. Those sacrifices in that temple were shadows of the cross. So they must now learn to concentrate on the meaning of the cross, to learn to worship God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the moral and spiritual sense, it is neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem nor in any other place that we are to worship God. It is not the place in itself; it is in the heart.

But that does not mean that the place has no place. There is a place for us to come together physically and it can be very important.

So we need to see both aspects of it. The physical place by itself cannot make us worship, but the physical place can be very helpful to promote a true worship of God.

So the Lord Jesus said, "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews."

So there are two aspects here the Lord Jesus addressed. One is: it is not the physical that is primary. Secondly, you must know what you worship; you must know whom you worship.

It is very easy for us to think that we are worshiping God when we are not. We may worship a god of our own imagination: we want God to be like this or like that and so we say He is like that. So we pray to Him according to our image of Him. But that is not going to result in something meaningful because we will not be worshiping the true God.

If we want to worship the true God, we must know who He is.

Salvation is from the Jews because God made special revelation to the Jewish people. God spoke through Moses; God spoke through the prophets among the Jewish people in order to reveal Himself to the people of the world.

But that again does not mean that if we do not have the Scriptures, if we do not listen to any of these prophets, we cannot know God. God can speak to anyone, anywhere, anytime if He chooses to do so, but this revelation is very important.

And now God has preserved His revelation to mankind in the Scriptures so that if we are diligent to seek Him, to ponder over what is recorded in the Scriptures, it is possible for us to have an accurate understanding of what God requires of us, who He is, and how we are to live.

And so the Lord Jesus said, "... an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."

Worship must be in spirit and truth. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." So these two aspects are emphasized: "God is spirit", so we are not to worship God primarily in the physical realm, just by physical things, although physical things can express worship. But our worship must first and foremost be in the realm of the spirit; it must be in our heart. If this part is not right then all the outward forms will have no value. In order to have true worship, the spirit must be right.

It is not in this mountain nor that mountain, this place nor that place - it is in the heart, in the spirit. And if we want to learn to worship in the spirit, we need to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will teach us how to worship God, who will reveal to us who the Lord Jesus is, who will show to us who God is. Then we can develop our spirit to truly worship God.

We must worship in spirit and truth, according to accurate understanding of God's revelation: what has God shown; what does God require of us; what has He really promised or not promised?

Otherwise we can misquote the Scriptures just like the evil one did to tempt Lord Jesus. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to teach us. He is the Spirit of truth; He will show us what is God's revelation.

Of course if our hearts are right, we are truly open to God, we will be able to appreciate many things that God wants to say to us. The Holy Spirit will have the freedom to teach us. The Gentiles who do not have the written Law, they have the law written in their hearts and if they are responsive to God, the Holy Spirit will teach them how to live their lives meaningfully.

So then why is it that worship is such an important manifestation of the wisdom of God?

Worship is often the desire to be recognized, to exercise power and control over others.

But in the case of God, it arises from His love and His self-giving. So the greatest expression of that is in the cross. When we understand the cross, we will understand why we should worship God. God is not seeking to extract from us for His own gains; He does not need that. God is seeking to give to us the very best and the cross is the greatest expression of that.

The apostle Paul tells us that when we behold the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Why? Why is it if we behold the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed to become like Him? How can a looking at the Lord result in transformation? Would not that be something very easy; we just look at Him and all of us become like Him? But that is not the meaning.

Beholding the glory of the Lord in the right way has at its heart the issue of worship.

We behold the Lord in a spirit of worship. As we look at God, we look at the Lord Jesus, in terms of what He has shown to us and who He really is, it will draw forth from us a desire to be like Him.

More and more, as we appreciate who God is, we want to be like Him. If our attitudes are good, we become more and more committed in this direction. We understand what it means to be holy, we understand what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, and we want to be like Him.

God cannot make us holy unless we want it. So this is critical.

If we do not wish to worship God, we cannot become holy because God cannot just decide and make us holy. This is a choice that we have to make and it comes about when we learn more and more to worship God.

We have seen that the most meaningful path is to live by meaning.

And the greatest choice that you can make out of living by meaning is to choose to worship God. It is the most meaningful choice that you can ever make because arising from that, all other good things will develop, will grow.

We consider fellowship with God: How do we enter into deep fellowship with God? Is it just by asking God to be close to us? Is it just by trying to do some things that are pleasing to God? That may draw us a little bit closer to Him but to truly have deep fellowship with God, we must first make sure our heart is completely His; that we love Him, we worship Him; we are prepared to obey Him absolutely.

It is in that kind of spirit that God will find it meaningful to relate with us because our hearts will be moving in the same direction as His. Fellowship is commonness, is togetherness. So if God is perfectly good, how can we have deep fellowship with Him if we are not prepared to work at being perfectly good?

So too, all other areas of life: How can we understand the Scriptures if we do not truly worship God? How can we appreciate what God wants to communicate if we do not worship Him? How can we help other people to repent and to trust the Lord Jesus if we do not truly worship God? All this will be communicated in the way we live our lives and in the words that we say.

A true worship of God will be manifested not just in our hearts but also in the spirit with which we live out in this world and communicate with others. That is the witness of light and life that come from God.

So as we behold the glory of God, we will be transformed into the same image because we draw near to Him, we appreciate Him, we obey Him, we trust Him, we walk with Him, we listen to Him, we do the things that are pleasing to Him.

The Lord Jesus as the perfect Man beheld the face of His Father at all times. He was constantly listening to what the Father was telling Him and He was constantly communicating what the Father wanted Him to communicate. He manifested what true worship is. As the perfect Man, He looked to God, He trusted Him, He walked with Him each moment and that is why He could totally fulfil the will of God and in the most difficult of moments, He continued to say, "Not My will but Yours be done." It was absolute obedience even in the most difficult of situations.

If we want to develop quality in our fellowship with God, to be what we ought to be then we must learn to worship God. So God in His wisdom calls us to worship Him because it is only in true worship that we can truly become good, we can benefit from all that God wants to give to us in His grace, in His love.

Often we wonder why God does not hear us, why is it He does not give us what we think is the very best. We may not realize that often we are not even listening to what He has to say, so we do not know what He is seeking to do, so we are not cooperating with Him. So in that situation, how can God truly give us the very best?

So if we want to live our lives well and fulfil God's call in our lives, we must learn to appreciate the wisdom of God expressed in the area of worship and give our lives absolutely to God in worship, with reverence and gratitude and full obedience, and work together with Him gladly and in faith to fulfil His will.

If we live our lives that way, we will find life to be very, very meaningful. Whatever the situation may be, whatever may take place, whatever may happen, God is perfectly good, almighty in His power, infinite in His wisdom, and all this will become beneficial to us when we learn to worship Him.

Let us then as we come before the Lord, ask Him to help us to ponder over what it means to worship Him and to consider whether in our daily lives we are worshiping Him as we should.

All true Christians worship God but there are different degrees of quality. Let us not be satisfied just to be a Christian who worships God to some degree. Let us ask God to teach us to worship Him as we truly ought to do. God is worthy of our worship. We should give everything for that.