Here I Am to Worship

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. (John 4:23)

There is something really important you need to know about yourself:

You are here to worship.

God created you to worship. It is the truest thing about you — foundational to who you are. To be sure, we are a lot of things — spouses, parents, friends, children, neighbors, employees — but at the bottom of all there is this central title: worshiper.

And it makes sense that we are mainly worshipers when we consider the fact that we are creatures. We were made by someone else, and we owe that Someone our entire lives. “Whatever you undertake, whatever you do, it ought to be ascribed to him.” God actually refers to his people as those “whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isaiah 43:7).

Worthy of Our Worship

Worship is gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth, and it stands as the act of which no greater act can be conceived.

God made us and he is worthy of our worship. It’s right that we “recognize his honor, and feel the worth of it and ascribe it to him in all the ways appropriate to his character” (John Piper, Desiring God, 84). “To see [God] and know him and be in his presence is the soul’s final feast. Beyond this there is no quest” (87). We don’t worship God to get anywhere else. “The highest good,” says St. Augustine, “is that which will leave us nothing further to seek in order to be happy, if only we make all our actions refer to it, and seek it not for the sake of something else, but for its own sake” (92).

But there’s a problem. We are broken. We have this amazing capacity as humans to worship God, but because of sin we are left blinded, empty, searching everywhere to fill this gaping hole left in our souls. We were made to worship God, but instead, too often we worship other things. We shackle ourselves to the gods of this world and let temporal things consume our lives. We keep falling for the lie that something other than God will make us happy. So what do we do? What has to happen?

The light of the world had to step down into darkness.

Hearts Made to Adore

Jesus humbly came to this earth he created to make God known, to show us his love, his worth, his wonder. He died on the cross in our place, bearing the wrath that we deserved, and then three days later he was raised from the dead in victory. He is now the King highly exalted, glorious in heaven above, opening our eyes by his Spirit to see his beauty. He awakens our hearts to adore him — to be glad in all that he is, to find him more satisfying than anything this world might offer us.

We were created to worship God, sin separated us from God, but Jesus has come to save us and bring us back to this great end for which we were made. Jesus has come to restore us to the place where we say, “God, you are my God!”

Jesus leads us to sing, humbly and truly, “Here I am to worship.”

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