WorshipCentral

Everybody under the sun is worshipping something, the great question is: what?

We can't help but worship: it's the automatic activity of the human heart. Whatever you treasure, has your heart; and whatever has your heart, automatically has your worship.

The other day I was chatting to some friends (who don't know Jesus yet) and we we're asking each other "what is your passion in life?" The question raised some really revealing answers because when we try put our fingers on what drives us, we reveal a trail of affection.

Wherever we invest our time, effort, intellect, energy, devotion, ambition and passion, will be the priority that we enthrone with our lives. And the sobering reality is that whatever we elevate on a throne will rule us.

One of my friends is a Jeweller. He comes from a long line of Jewellers and his family have been making treasure for hundreds of years. I’ve watched him at work with newly engaged couples, and he’s a true master.

He’ll sit you down and chat about diamonds for ten minutes, explaining all about them, how they’re formed, how they’re selected and cut. All this time, there’s not a ring in sight.

Then suddenly, in a very relaxed way, he’ll pull a tiny pouch from his suit pocket and empty three or four little diamonds onto the table. You’re totally transfixed by these perfect gems. He’s been so good at showing you the real thing, that when you actually see it, you can’t take your eyes off it.

The reality is that the world is desperate to connect with something real and something beautiful: all around us our friends, colleagues, school mates we grow up with, are all searching for something eternal to enthrone.

If you think about it, to worship something tempoary is pointless. We're created with eternity in our hearts, so it's only natural that if we put something temporal on the thrones of our lives, we're going to be utterly disappointed.

If they've never seen the real thing, people will settle for cheap imitations. But the great news is that Jesus has issued a personal invitation to the rebel worshipper:

'Father seeks true worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and truth. [John 4:23-24]'

Jesus's invitation is not really for the religious, the in-crowd, the ones who's got in together. The disciples had gone into the town at the time, they're not involved. No, this invitation is for the outcast, the lost, the failures, the irreligious, the unholy. This is an invitation to all mankind, from every corner of this earth, from every culture and religion.

Those of us who've figured it out already are called to describe to the rest of mankind that there is a treasure that can satisfy. That to enthrone this treasure is to make an unbreakable connection with the only one who truly understands our hearts.

We are to challenge, to explain, to sing, to live lives that point them back to this original calling, to open their eyes to the One.

As AW Tozer once said: “Jesus was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, died on the cross and rose from the grave to make worshippers out of rebels!”

To be a real worshipper is to live a life that makes worshippers out of rebels: worship and evangelism are one and the same activity. When people look at our lives, I pray they'll see trails of affection that lead to Jesus enthroned in our lives. Let them see Jesus in the way we love each other, in the way we behave, in the way we work, in the way we honour the poor, in the lives we live. Let them see Jesus clearly: they won’t be able to turn their eyes away.