Worship.

Without reservations. Because you are loved.

This post is a pile of my thoughts from the last several days. They have been going in all sorts of directions and have been inspired by all sorts of things but I'm finding that they all stem back to one thing.

Worship.

It's Human nature. We were made to worship. Something. We feel the need to devote our life to something. Our energy. Our time. Our worship. What we worship is what we crave. It's what we sacrifice our time for. I don't need to list all the things that could possibly fit in this description. You already know it. Just look inside your self and if you're very honest you probably won't have a hard time of knowing what it is that is the object of your worship. 

But this isn't a post about idolatry. That is a whole 'nother subject...

 Here I'm talking about Jesus. We have grown up being told what our "worship" should look like but is that really truth?

There's more to be discovered about the heart of God.

There are multitudes who have no idea what He really wants. To many of us He is portrayed to be a God whom we are to serve by way of our good deeds and works. As a way of somehow hopefully paying Him back for the suffering He endured when He paid for our sin. Right there you have it. He paid the price because He knew we couldn't. So why do we think we can pay it back?  If Jesus paid our debt because he knew we couldn't..... that's that. He didn't do it to suffice until we could... he did it instead of us. That shows us right there that God is not interested in our works of 'payment'. He wants our worship.

In the past I have had a very shallow understanding of worship. In fact I didn't really know what it was. I felt that there was much more to it than what I saw portrayed. I had this idea that Christ died for me so that I had a reason to serve/give back to Him. I didn't get it that He was actually doing what He did so that I would know that He loved me. That He wanted a relationship with me.

I have grown up singing the song "I Stand Amazed" but it wasn't until recently that the words ...He shed no tears for His own grief but sweat drops of blood for mine... actually sunk in. I was singing the song with a group of others and suddenly my thoughts ran wild like this: "Wait! What are the next words?" and then it was: "Really? I never knew it said that! O Jesus thank you! This changes everything..."  And then there were various other thoughts that I don't remember as exactly.

The main point is this: How we view God determines how we view worship to Him.

If we believe the lie that we must work hard to repay Him -out of love of course- for what He did for us then we will also -most likely- feel as though we are never good enough for Him. Like we will never measure up to what He deserves to have from us. We will feel insecure about offering Him nothing but ourselves. On the flip side when we realize that we can't repay Him and that His whole reason for dying was to bring God closer than ever to man and also to show us just how great His unconditional love is than our response is naturally one of thankfulness, praise, love, worship.