Worship, pt 2

The Object of Worship

Genesis 1:1-3 (New Living Translation)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface.  Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Imagine the power to take nothing and create everything.  The human brain cannot truly comprehend that concept.  We cannot see "nothing."  We cannot physically hold "nothing" in our hands.  We can see an empty space where there is "nothing."  We can see that we are not holding "something".  But we cannot see the nothing.  Nothing has no mass.  It does not have weight.  It does not have substance.  But God used the material of nothing to build, to create.  Kind of makes your head hurt, huh?

God was there when there was nothing.  He saw the "nothing".  He peered into the "nothingness" and spoke.  The rest, as they say, is history.  His spoken word created everything from nothing.  He took nothing and created everything we can see and even things we cannot see.

Scientists claim that the cosmos is constantly expanding, reaching to distances too great for the human mind to comprehend.  I have no doubt in this claim.  As we read in the third verse of the previous passage of Scripture, He said, "Let there be light."  And light was.  I don't see where He ever said, "Light, stop."  Could this be the "big bang" scientists like to point at as the beginning of everything?  Why not?

This is the object of our worship, He who spoke and everything was.  He who said, and it became.  He who decided and it came to be.  A God so big, so powerful that he sees...no...he IS time.  Distance means nothing.  Time means nothing.  He exists outside time and space...NO time and space exist in HIM!  Wow.  What a concept!

So big, yet so caring.  So powerful, yet so concerned about His creation that he came, in the fleshly form of Jesus to save His creation.  So expansive the he holds everything in His hands, yet so personal that each of us can have a personal relationship with Him.  It was His plan from the beginning (Revelation 13:8 New Living Translation)...to save mankind...to deliver us from the evil that would befall us.

It is this Creator, this God who, after resting on the seventh day, formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed His own breath into man.  He hand crafted man in His own image then imparted His spirit into man and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7 New Living Translation).  He did not breath in to animals, plants, the water, the skies, the sun, the moon.  Just man.  He gave man life by imparting His spirit into man.

HE alone must be the object of our worship.  We let other things take His place:  family, jobs, money, hobbies, people, ideas, philosophies, false god's, fear, doubt, self.  We let them take preeminence.  We let them take His place as the object of our worship.  We place our trust in them when He alone is the one who can sustain us in times of trouble.  He alone is  the one who can protect us, comfort us, keep us.

Psalm 18:2 (New Living Translation)
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.  He is my shield, the strength of my salvation and my stronghold.

In addition to this reference, the Psalmist David referred to the Lord God as his shield or fortress 26 times.  David, although not perfect, knew his God and depended on Him.  We, too, can know him as not just Savior, but as the protector of our salvation.  Salvation is running to him for protection; depending on Him; trusting Him.

Worship means to acknowledge Him for who He is; Creator, Protector, Savior, Keeper, Divine, Holy, Highly Exalted, Superior, Healer.

When we know Him and acknowledge Him for who He is we can join the living beings in Heaven who, as related in Revelation 4:8 (New Living Translation) "...day after day and night after night keep on saying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty--the One who always was, who is and who is still to come."