Worship is a word that our culture doesn’t like. I think it makes a lot of us think of an evil warlord making his subjects bow down to him and him cackling muah-ha-ha. When we take that version of worship we tend to look at God as some crazy megalomaniac who is so desperate for friends that he commands us all to worship him or else pay the ultimate price.
But that is not the image of God that I read in God’s Word: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:14-17)
Maybe those words don’t resonate, because we have deep father wounds. Let me try and put it this way. Worship to God is sort of like this. Every day when I come home from work, my son Austin opens the garage door and greats me with a gleeful scream, Daddy! He hugs my legs and then looks up and commands, Swing me, Daddy!
We made our way to the chainlink swing that hangs 20 feet below a branch of the Sweet Gum tree. I put him in the seat and pulled back on the chain and released. Faster Daddy, not slower!
I pushed and soon he giggled with delight as he swung parallel to the ground about 20 feet in the air. In between swings he screamed, You’re strong, Daddy!
And there it is.
My son found delight in my strength. He honored me by declaring that truth. That is a shadow of worship. Worship magnifies God by declaring truths we can only fathom. And it helps us to see Him as He really is. Really strong. Really Great. Really Loving.
We are designed to magnify, to worship, and to declare his truths not only with our mouths, but with our lives. That’s what the series of Magnify is about.
