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We are all creatures that are made to worship something.  If we don’t worship and venerate God, we tend to worship and venerate our favorite sports team, girl, celebrity, car, career, and/or bank account.  Believing the object of your worship exists is a great first step but has very little to do with the actual worship and veneration itself.

When it comes to worshiping the God revealed to us in the Bible, we are (1) called to tell others of God’s greatness as well as (2) tell Him directly.  Telling others about the object of your veneration or worship has got to be the most natural thing for beings like ourselves.

(1) For an example, let’s just look at a young man who has a souped-up hot-rod of a car that he works on constantly.  This young man has purchased every after-market accessory he can afford, from an aluminum radiator, nitrous tank, and twin tailpipes to a supercharger and an ear-splitting stereo system.  I can guarantee that this car will be a big part of this young man’s conversations to all of his friends, acquaintances, and any stranger who will listen to him.  He doesn’t tell others of his object of worship and veneration because he is obligated to do so, but because it is the natural outpouring of his affections.  I’d argue that no happiness is complete until we express it to others.   Let’s say you saw a great ballgame on TV one evening that comes down to the last 5 seconds and your local team wins.  You’d almost feel a compulsion to talk to your friends about the nail-biting final points around the coffee pot the next morning.  This wouldn’t come from some sort of coercion, but it’d be the most natural overflow.

Now, I’m not drawing a direct parallel between a tricked-out car or a ballgame with God, but rather I’m offering a lesser to greater argument.  If a people are pleased with cars and sports they spend their time, money and attention on, how much more would Followers of Jesus be pleased with the author, and king of all the universe especially if they understand that this monarch takes personal interest them?  How much more would such a worshiper and venerator of God want to tell others about Him?

(2) Not only is it natural and necessary to tell everyone you know about the object of your veneration, it is also natural and necessary to tell the object itself, so long as it’s a personal being that can understand.  I have known people who actually talk to their beloved cars, but usually this is the kind of thing they do in front of other people for a laugh.  Such attention is not proper to give to impersonal things like cars, or bank accounts, but when the object of your worship and veneration is a celebrity, or your loved one, things are different.

For a man who worships or venerates a celebrity, he’ll try to get close to the star to get an autograph, for instance.  It’s not that he really cares about a signature on a piece of paper, but it’s more of an excuse to talk to this person he thinks so much of.

Now think of a young couple who are very much in love and plan to be married in a month after a long engagement.  Further, let’s assume they’ve been separated for a long period and see each other again for the first time in two months.  On their meeting, would you expect the young woman to do anything less than tell her fiancé how much she loves him and how much she has missed him?  Wouldn’t be strange and unnatural to do otherwise?  Such expression of adoration and affection are once again the natural outpouring of what is in the heart.  Now again, I’m using the lesser to greater argument.  If a fan can’t help but want to tell a celebrity how much he likes him, and an engaged couple can’t help but express their love to one another, how much more should a Christ follower want to tell his beloved Heavenly Father (or “Abba,” which means “daddy” in Aramaic) how much he loves Him?

We all worship something in this life.  We may not participate in formal worship services or light candles, but we all inevitably worship and venerate the thing that pleases us most in life.  With this desire for worship being a basic part of human nature, the question is: “Are you worshiping the right thing?”  If we were created for a purpose and if the God of the Bible exists, then it turns out that He is the only proper object of worship and veneration.  It would turn out that if we really were designed this way, our worshiping of Him would be the most natural, not to mention pleasurable experience of all.  I am told the famous atheist, Ayn Rand once said, “Admiration is the rarest and best of pleasures.”  On this note I agree with her wholeheartedly.

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