My good friend asked me a question in response to my previous post. i was obliged to answer. i tried commenting back on his blog, but it turned into this...so i just decided to make a blogpost for it.
Question:
Do you think it is possible to serve God and not worship Him? Does your heart have to be set on praising and worshiping Him to also truly serve Him?
Answer: Yes, to both. My heart does not need to be in the right place for God to be glorified; that is part of His nature, and He will forever be glorious. But as for the question of whether or not i have to be intending to worship God to worship him: yes! absolutely, 100%. If this was not the case, everything would be worship because, by grace, everything is perfected (even the darkest of sin) and turned to something that is A)beneficial to those who love God, and B) (here's the kicker) brings God to glory. The beauty of our Lord is that He has chosen to fuse a and b together so that He is glorified when we are brought to glory along with Him. He has chosen to glorify Himself by loving us, and us by loving Him. This is why we call it a romance, it is reciprocal. Not to say that our love for God could ever equal His for us, or that we could ever be as glorious as Him, or that the end purpose of anything has ever been that we should be glorified. My point is quite the opposite. None of this is necessary, God could cause us to serve Him without love or benefit to us, and He would still be worthy. But our God is gracious, our God is loving, our God has compassion on us while we are still sinners, and He chooses to make us like Himself. We are promised this in 1 John 3:2, which i have posted on before. So, is God glorified when our intention is not praise? yes. Could a selfish act, with no consideration of God be considered an act of worship? no. It is by grace that every sin is brought to perfection, but it must be brought there, it must be perfected and by this logic we recognize that it did not start at such a state. May the prayer of our hearts be that we could grow closer to the purity of a soul that longs only to please the loving and glorious maker who was gracious enough to call us while we were still lost, and to one day make us into the likeness of Himself.
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4 comments:
If God was solely dependent on us and our hearts, He wouldn't be glorified nearly as much as He should!
I do agree on the second point you made. Our heart MUST be in the right place to truly serve Him. If not, we would be like the Pharisees- proclaiming the Word but with bitter hearts. What good would that be?
Excellent incite, Mark.
Good. I asked that question because your previous post about grace through faith left me with an inquiry. Why did Martha not understand Mary was in an act of worshiping Christ? Was Martha herself worshiping Jesus with her acts of service or just serving Him.
I like what you said.
Brad and I were talking last night a little about serving God. I feel like we tag on serving God to anything. Example: Telling students that letting someone go in front of them in line as "serving God". Unfortunately, I this is completely incorrect. Serving is of COURSE a Life Style, but it require a heart that is bent before our King, that is focused on Him and bringing Him glory.
I've been having an interesting time trying to figure out what worshipping God truly means. I feel like it's been watered down. Severely watered down. I am not ok with this.
i love you :-)
Time for a new post.
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