O Lord, thank You for daily saving me from myself. God, what a lifetime privilege to belong to You Father. I exalt You Lord for Your goodness. What a pleasure and delight to know that You win every battle You engage in. And to know that each day, each hour You are drawing me in to You? O Lord, I thank You with everything in me; I am delighted my King, to know that the continual saving of my soul solely rests upon Your shoulders; and furthermore, that You are a God who indeed always finishes what He starts (Phillipians 1:6). With the Apostle Paul, my heart sings, “to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).

“Worship is a fusion of Scripture and prayer.” Eugene H. Peterson

We all worship

Each breathing human is a worshipper. And we all worship one of two things: either we worship ourselves or we worship the crucified and risen King Jesus. Isn’t that the first lie of Satan? Did God really say? Our first sin against God is that we chose ourselves- namely our perception over God’s Word. Who isn’t tempted daily to choose his/her flesh over God’s righteousness? The Word testifies, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Here is our first worship of self: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). Shortly after as the Lord asked the man what they had done (Genesis 3:11), he could have chosen to worship God and to take responsibility for what they had just done, but instead he too, just like Eve, chose to save himself, and to present his perception. “Then the man said, “the woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12).

And our first act of self-worship introduced what we know now as sin.

“Sin altered every thought, desire, word, and deed. It created a world of double-mindedness and mixed motives, self-worship and self-absorption. People desired to be served, but they hated serving. They craved control and nurtured delusions of self-sufficiency. They forgot their Creator, but worshiped his creation. Rather than loving people and using things to express it, people loved things and used people to get them. Humanity’s second generation even committed murder. They began to lie, cheat, hide, and deny. People suffered at the hands of others, from momentary thoughtlessness to unspeakable acts of physical and sexual abuse. For the first time, people wept from grief within and suffering without.” Instruments In the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul David Tripp

Adam had clear instructions from God: “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you should surely die”. (Genesis 2:16-17).

When we obey God’s Word, we are worshipping Him. Simply put, when we obey God, we are ultimately telling Him Lord I choose Your way over my way. And our beliefs is what drives the way we live.

Beliefs

“John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.” John 3:27-28,30-31

Each day we are given a simple choice: am I going to choose to increase in my life or to decrease? When I make choices to increase in my life, I automatically decrease God in my life; and the opposite is true, when I choose to honor God and I decrease in my life, I will rightly increase God in His proper place as God.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Babel. This is the first story where we see men desire to make a name for themselves.

“Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”’ Genesis 11:1-4

The people wanted to make a “tower whose top is in the heavens”; and this is a sharply contrary to John the Baptist words: that God must increase, but we decrease. The story of Babel shows how it is the sinful human nature to want to increase and so decrease God from our own lives and the world all around.

Paul David Tripp’s words bear repeating here: “They craved control and nurtured delusions of self-sufficiency.”

We are all people who desire to be masters of our lives and destinies. To varying degrees we all crave being in control and surely each human being is acquainted with our innate desire to be self-sufficient. Isn’t that why self-help books and teachings are so ever popular? We desperately want to believe that we can help ourselves. We quickly make ourselves gods instead of waiting on God (Exodus 34:1). We don’t want a God who tells us what to do, we would rather do what feels good to us and what we think is good to us. But Proverbs 14:12 warns us: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

Since Adam and Eve chose the way that seemed right to them, we all have followed their steps.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 1:20-23,25

In your everyday life, what do you believe? That you should decrease in your life and therefore glorify God as God, or that you should be glorified because of the works of your hands?

O God! Never leave me to myself.
Daily I am tempted to worship myself- my feelings, my desires, my thoughts, over Your truth
O righteous God! I bring yet again all that I am at Your altar.
Father, please never ever let me have my way.
My heart chooses You, Lord God.
My heart desires You.
Holy Spirit, please, forever enable me to glorify God as God.
Lord God, forever I pray, on the throne of my heart, may You forever reign unchallenged.
Father, I pray that there is never any rebellion in me against Your will, in Jesus’ name.
I know nothing is too hard for You, my God.
Your will and Your ways are ever my delight in Christ. Amen

Christianity

“Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Matthew 9:10-13

In a world that tirelessly works to present a perfect version of ourselves; do you see yourself as sick? If you don’t think you are sick or if you don’t see yourself as sick, I assure you, you will never see your need for Jesus. Timothy Keller said it perfectly: “No one is too bad for Jesus. A lot of people think they are too good for Jesus.”

Didn’t the pharisees somewhat see themselves as too good for Jesus? Jesus was a man who ate, sat, and hanged out with the rejected, cast out, and the most broken people of society. The Pharisees sense of superiority is what at the end denied them a seat in the Kingdom of God. They worshipped their own sense of righteousness, so they rejected Jesus’ righteousness.

Brothers and sisters, outside of God, we have literally nothing good (Psalm 16:2).

You have to understand that there is nothing good that we bring to Jesus; all we bring Him is our sickness and our sinfulness and in exchange God cloths us with His own righteousness. Jesus takes our sickness and makes us whole. You and I don’t have to worship ourselves, for this will surely lead to death. I don’t have to deny my sickness and my sinfulness because these are the very things that Jesus came to cure. My weakness is what Jesus is looking forward to taken on. “And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” II Corinthians 12:9-10

Don’t deny and reject what qualifies you to belong to the Kingdom of God: your unworthiness in of yourself.

Father God, I know I am daily tempted to worship myself instead of worshiping You. God, I wholeheartedly acknowledge my need for You. Save me from the futility of my thoughts, my feelings, and my desires. Purify my heart Lord and I forever invite You to be Savior in my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“If the altar’s where you meet us
Take me there, take me there
If you’re looking for an offering
It’s right here, my life is here
I’ll be a living sacrifice for you

You’re a fire
The refiner
I wanna be consumed

I wanna be tried by fire
Purified
You take whatever you desire
Lord here’s my life

If your glory wants to come in
Let it fall, we want it all
Lord your fire is consuming
Fill this place, set it ablaze
I’ll be a living sacrifice for you

Clean my hands, purify my heart
I wanna burn for you, only for You
Take my life as a sacrifice
I wanna burn for you, only for You

Burn me beautiful
Burn me lovely
Burn me righteous
Burn me holy” Refiner by Chandler Moore & Steffany Gretzinger