Dear Trekker,
I recently had an “eye-opener”. Let me tell you about it… and this month’s writing is my response to it. For a few months I have been volunteering as an office assistant at the Peterson Air Force Base Chapel where friend wife and I worship regularly. A promotional package of “religious materials” was being opened and in it was a little green “personal fan.” The fan itself was intriguing – when turned on, the whirling blades gave a red-lighted message, fan-writing if you will, the last comment being, “Remember, God is your greatest fan”. A play on words? Not sure. I remarked, “Seems quite New Age to me.” Then I said something like, “Maybe the message is true, probably is, but if that is primarily how I view God, i.e. my biggest fan, I am in deep trouble.”
Since that incident, I have reflected on how men and women of old in Scripture viewed God. How should we view God? How should we worship Him? I have sought to “allow” for contemporary worship styles. I have prayed, “Lord, don’t allow me to overreact to younger generations and how they express their faith.” But I am troubled a bit.
The God of the universe, the Creator, Sustainer, Savior, Redeemer and Lord of all, is so easily trivialized when the focus of faith and worship experience is on self, i.e. what He can do for me, instead of on Him, and what I should and can be doing to honor and please Him. Worship can easily merge into a huge “selfie” for each of us. Corporate worship can markedly “lose” the concept of Body life, that we, each one, are simply members of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, worshipping together in community. It is not about us, it is only about Him! People who are prone to say, “Oh, I can worship anywhere, anytime; I don’t need to go to church” totally miss the call of the bridal party/community lifting up praise and thanksgiving to the Bridegroom. Don’t you love Pauline metaphors found in Scripture!
I don’t want to be an old fogey, but I have discovered “my little fan incident” may reflect more widespread questionable thinking than I was aware. I discovered a blog, “God is Your Biggest Fan and He is Rooting for You.” I discovered a religious magazine article: “Your Biggest Fan: God Does What is Best for Us.” How does such casual treatment of God, with an inordinate emphasis on self, square with worship reality! We become what or like the One we worship! Yes, we are divine originals, each of us, but isn’t our goal to be like Jesus? Could there be a higher goal than to radiate the aroma of Christ (II Corinthians 2:14)?
Here’s the rub: To think first of God as my biggest fan is to convolute truth! Who is worshipping and cheering on whom? “Who is increasing; who is decreasing”, to transpose John the Baptizer’s characterization of his status? What are we conveying to the world at large when we proclaim God as our biggest fan? Of course God is love. He has given Himself for us. God the Holy Spirit has been given to us and lives within us.
But…. God is first our Father, not our fan. The Lord said clearly, “Don’t call anyone else, father. You have only one Father” (Matthew 23:8-10). Ditto rabbi, or leader. God alone is Rabbi, Father, Leader. Truly in an exalted class by Himself. “Fan” doesn’t cut it! “Fan” does not begin to capture the love and passion of the story of the prodigal Father, wayward son or his older, disenchanted brother. Oh, trekker, beware, the culture of the day diverts our attention away from the “good news” of hope and eternal salvation. “God is my spiritual fan” is another gospel, I fear, even as Paul wrote of “other gospels” 2000 years ago.
How do we escape our finitude and fallenness? We worship Him! We go corporately into “His corner”, not ours. We are called to worship; we are called to pray. It is outside our control; we merely answer the call and respond to His initiative! I love the liturgy of worship, the outworking of and participation in what He has done and is doing. Formal words of praise in reading and song ascend as Holy incense to Him, I am certain. He alone is worthy; we were created to praise Him and give thanks. When self is featured, we totally miss the point! (Romans 1:21-25 is so enlightening here. Read it trekker.)
What is worship to be? William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury 100+ years ago, says it well, “Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty! The opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of the will to his purpose… and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for self-centeredness, which is our original sin and the source of all sin.”
The center and focus of worship can only be God. Worship is first upward…we are to “love the Lord with all of our mind, heart and strength”, and then outward, “likewise your neighbor.” No thing or mere person demands or is worthy of worship. When the core components of worship linger with or divert to anything other than God our Sovereign Creator and King, we unconsciously or even intentionally can lapse into idolatry. He is a jealous God who draws us to Himself by His Spirit. Worship is the summum bonum of our existence… we are to start now and continue throughout eternity.
Because God is sovereign and Lord, he tells us how to worship Him. I am always amazed at the details of worship in the Pentateuch He gave then to His people, the Israelites. And the Psalms are so instructive concerning a proper attitude in worship. I like Psalm 95, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord: let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song” (vs. 1, 2). “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker (vs. 6). In John 4:24 Jesus said that “God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Hebrews 12:28 says: “Since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God — with reverence and awe.”
Trekker, who are we to worship, God or self? Adam and Eve answered the question wrongfully and self-worship is a defining, unfulfilling legacy of which we all are tainted. May our answer in our day be as the Lord’s to Satan: “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10).
Seeking to worship Him only, your trekker brother,
Jim Meredith
